It depends so often on discoveries made in pure research institutions, universities and the like, which have no industry affiliations or commercial environment. Furthermore, the goals may not be obvious. And who would have thought that physicists in Indiana trying to model the behaviour of electrons in a semiconductor as diffusion of a gas in a bottle, would supply the key to the invention of the transistor. The challenge to governments and planners is in justifying support of basic, curiosity-driven research as the foundation for all revolutionary or dynamic innovation. In setting the stage, the first thing to realize is that basic science has never been a local, parochial, national or regional activity.
Globalization is nothing new to science.
Unless a country continues to encourage and fully support basic research to an international level of excellence, such that the membership of its nationals in the invisible colleges is by invitation rather than supplication, it will lose access to the generator of new ideas. This process of loss of scientific literacy and its economic consequences is very rapid. It is in the interest of our suppliers that we do not become a threat through technological parity, and that we lack the knowledge to read the blueprints which tell the difference between the best and the superseded. Basic research can be responsive to social needs but only as painted with the broadest brush. The strategic plan should be invisible at the bench.