The Roundtable was created in 1984 to provide a unique forum for dialog among top government, university, and industry leaders of the national science and technology enterprise. The purpose is to facilitate personal working relationships and exchange of ideas regarding issues, problems, and promising opportunities that are facing those charged with developing and deploying science and technology resources. These annual reports begin by describing the purpose, structure, and mode of operation of the Roundtable. There follow sections devoted to the council activities, major projects, and follow-up planning, and the activities of the Roundtable working groups. Meeting agendas and publications lists are also included.

The Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable was created just over a decade ago to provide a unique forum for dialogue among top government, university, and industry leaders of the national science and technology enterprise. The purpose is to facilitate personal working relationships and exchange of ideas about issues, problems, and promising opportunities that are facing those charged with developing and deploying science and technology resources. The open dialogue and informal exchange of ideas preclude a process of making formal recommendations or offering specific advice. Instead, the Roundtable seeks to stimulate new approaches by dissemination of its discussions, and pro-active contacts with organizations that may want to build on the idea base it establishes. After introductory material on the structure and operation of the Roundtable, accomplishments on current projects are described. Projects include: Stresses on research and education at colleges and universities; Formulating US research policies within an international context; The Federal Demonstration project, designed to improve the management of federally-funded research; Analysis of the costs of research in industrial, academic, and federal labs; Industry-university research collaborations; and Public stakeholding in America's investment in science and technology.

The Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable was created just over a decade ago to provide a unique forum for dialogue among top government, university, and industry leaders in the national science and technology enterprise. The purpose is to facilitate personal working relationships and exchange of ideas about issues, problems, and promising opportunities facing those charged with developing and deploying science and technology resources. In 1996, Council meetings focused on the following: (1) the impact of information technology on the structure of research and educational organizations; (2) ways to improve communication between the science and engineering community and the public; and (3) new approaches both to measuring the results of research investments, and to communicating those metrics to non-technical decision-makers and to the public. Significant milestones were also achieved in four major projects, representing, impart, follow-up activity from previous Council Meeting discussions: (1) facilitating the Federal Demonstration Partnership, designed to maximize the efficiency of the federal research support system; (2) compiling results of a regional workshop on experiences in industry-university collaborative organization; (3) publishing the results of a study comparing the cost structures for research performed in the industrial, academic, and government laboratory sector; and (4) catalyzing, and participating in, a series of campus-based convocations on stresses being experienced in the research university environment.

The major accomplishment of the past year in the Roundtable's continuing work on issues of concern to the academic enterprise is the preparation of two documents - Science and Technology in the Academic Enterprise: Status, Trends, and Issues and Perspectives on Financing Academic Research Facilities: A Resource for Policy Formulation. The significance of these two publications is that they both organize a large amount of complex and often controversial material in a way that is useful for further discussions and, in some cases, action by the government and higher education communities. The test for the Roundtable now is whether it can stimulate these follow-on activities. The model in this regard is the Federal Demonstration Project, where the Roundtable stimulated specific government-university joint actions in streamlining research grant administration. All of these activities are described below in greater detail.

The breadth of this work will allow the reader to acquire a comprehensive and panoramic picture of the nature of innovation within a single handbook.