Education lays the foundation.
Maintaining a culture of innovation in the United States will require a larger home-grown pool of energized and creative mathematicians and scientists. The US education system must produce more creative thinkers in math and science to maintain this pool. As an industry, venture capital is especially well positioned to communicate the opportunities afforded to math and science students in the United States because our industry was built by individuals with such backgrounds.

NVCA Actions:

• Employ national communications programs and individual member involvement at the community level to draw K-12 students toward careers and future courses of study in mathematics and the sciences.
• Support legislation that supports enhancements to education in math and science for all students.

Immigration fuels innovation.
The United States must continue to attract and retain the best and brightest minds from abroad. As a nation of immigrants, America has harnessed the intellectual firepower and derring-do of foreign nationals for 300 years. Today, they remain the unsung heroes of American innovation and entrepreneurship - founding and building strong US companies. Economic and political changes across the globe will require the US to concentrate as much on retaining foreign innovators as it does on attracting them.

NVCA Actions:

• Educate the public by quantifying the impact of foreign born nationals on the US economy and by telling the stories of immigrant innovators.
• Support legislative efforts to ease restrictions on the participation of foreign born nationals in the US innovation economy.

Research primes the pump of development.
Basic research and development must remain a priority for Congress, government agencies, educational institutions, and corporations because it sows the seeds for bringing innovation to market. Advances in aerospace, biotechnology and information technology over the last 50 years provide illustrative examples of the value of basic R&D to the commercial innovation development process.

NVCA Actions:

• Continue to meet with House and Senate Appropriators with a focus on securing a "doubling" initiative of 7% per year increase for federal basic research programs.
• Play a pivotal role in forming the new policy on patents in the coming year.
• Work with members of the House Small Business Committee on legislation aimed at clarifying the Congressional intent of SBIR grants to restore eligibility for venture-backed companies.

Access to capital equals access to growth.
The US must ensure that the best young companies have appropriate access to capital for innovation and growth. The US capital market system remains an important competitive tool in attracting and nurturing innovation, but it is not immune to ill-effects caused by overregulation and over-taxation. We need to work consistently for the right balance of transparency and opportunity for all investors.

NVCA Actions:

• Work with congressional leaders to build support for an exemption for smaller public companies from many of the costly internal controls in Section 404 of SOX.
• Work on Capitol Hill to keep the tax burden on capital low.

Why NVCA?
As arbiters of promising technologies and business models for over fifty years and as committed investors in emerging growth companies, the venture capital community is uniquely positioned to provide insights into the state of innovation in the US relative to its global competitors and to make recommendations regarding how the US can maintain its competitive edge.

Why now?
Based on our historical perspective, the present environment in the US is simply not as conducive to nurturing innovation as it once was for economic, societal and political reasons. This perspective is corroborated by four recent trends of concern: 1) poor US math and science performance and a dwindling talent pool, 2) growing restrictions on the foreign nationals who have historically taken a leadership role in the building of emerging companies here in the US, 3) a precipitous drop in basic research and development among corporations and diminished output on the part of the government and university sectors, and 4) increasing regulation of the US capital markets that decreases access to growth capital for young companies.

Has the US already lost its leadership position?
Despite these challenges, NVCA believes that the global innovation lead is still America's to lose, and that the initiatives necessary to address these issues are not merely defensive, but rather offer opportunities to increase US competitive leadership for decades to come. But we must act now.

How committed is NVCA to the issue of US global competitiveness?
The NVCA's Board was unanimous in its assessment that US competitiveness is an issue of critical importance to the continued success to the venture capital industry and to the future success of the country. Therefore, we view MAGNET as a long-term strategic initiative that will require the same level of energy and commitment that we have brought to other issues of concern to our membership over the years.