Stephen A. Merrill

Stephen Merrill has been Executive Director of the National Academies’* Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy (STEP) since its formation in 1991. With the sponsorship of a growing number of federal government agencies, foundations, multinational corporations in various sectors, and international institutions, he has developed the STEP program into an important discussion forum and authoritative voice on technology and other microeconomic policies – technical standards, trade, taxation, human resources, regulation, and statistical as well as research and development policies. At the same time he has directed several STEP projects and publications, including Investing in Productivity and Prosperity (1994), Improving America’s Schools (1995), Industrial Research and Innovation Indicators (1997), Borderline Case: International Tax Policy, Corporate Research and Development, and Investment (1997), and U.S. Industry in 2000: Studies in Competitive Performance and Securing America’s Industrial Strength (1999). He is currently managing a three-year study of intellectual property policies. His analysis (with Michael McGeary) of the changing field distribution of federal research support in the 1990s appeared in the September 10, 1999, issue of Science and has been cited in numerous discussions of trends in public research and development investment.

Dr. Merrill’s association with the National Academies began in 1985, when he was principal consultant on the Academy report, Balancing the National Interest: National Security Export Controls and Global Economic Competition. As a consultant he also contributed to Academy studies in the areas of science policy, manufacturing, and competitiveness. In 1987 he was appointed to direct the Academies’ first government and congressional liaison office, and until July 1995 he served concurrently as Executive Director of the STEP Board and the Office of Government and External Affairs. During his tenure in the latter position the Academies received a steadily increasing number of congressional requests for policy advice.

Previously, Dr. Merrill was a Fellow in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where he specialized in technology trade issues. His publications include The United States and the New Technological Competition in the CSIS Significant Issues Series, Securing Technological Advantage: Balancing Export Controls and Innovation (editor), and The Great Trade Debate for the Roosevelt Center for American Policy Studies.

For seven years until 1981, he served on various congressional staffs, most recently that of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, where he organized the first congressional hearings on international competition in biotechnology and microelectronics and was responsible for legislation on technological innovation and the allocation of intellectual property rights arising from government-sponsored research.

Dr. Merrill holds degrees in political science from Columbia (B.A., summa cum laude), Oxford (M. Phil.), and Yale (M.A. and Ph.D.) Universities. In 1992 he attended the Senior Managers in Government Program of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. From 1989 to 1996 he was an adjunct professor of international affairs at Georgetown University.