Worthy reports are as frequently encountered in Washington DC as grand monuments — and are just as likely to be ignored by the locals. But lawmakers will fail their constituents if they manage to ignore the latest study on competitiveness by the National Academies.

The report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, addresses resurgent fears that the United States' longstanding global leadership in research and development is on the wane. Written by a panel chaired by Norman Augustine, former chief executive of technology corporation Lockheed Martin, it offers several concrete recommendations designed to keep that leadership intact. Whether the US government pays any attention or not, its competitors will find the panel's findings well worth a look.

Whereas previous studies of this kind have focused primarily on research funding, this one concentrates much of its attention on improving the nation's scientific literacy. It calls for the annual recruitment of some 10,000 science and maths teachers, proposing that science undergraduates be lured into the classroom with generous scholarships, with the lofty goal of improving science education at school for some 10 million people.

This proposal may appear to some US politicians to be central planning run amok — and it doesn't really address the low pay and social standing of teachers in the United States. But it does have potential and precedent: an existing programme called Teach for America has succeeded in recruiting thousands of young college graduates to teach in the nation's most troubled neighbourhoods.

Other recommendations of note include a call for the creation of a new energy-research agency that would conduct low-cost, high-risk, high-reward research projects. This would be modelled on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which has been highly successful in backing exciting, basic research that may spawn useful technology. Another new entity would be set up expressly to arrange for the construction of scientific facilities.

Some of these suggestions will require serious political commitment to implement — but they would go a long way towards fostering fresh scientific talent.

The academy panel also proposes radical changes in the treatment of young scientists in general, and foreign ones in particular. It suggests a new category of generous grants that would allow young researchers early in their career to firmly establish their own lines of enquiry. Furthermore, it calls for changes in US immigration policy that would make it easier for foreign students and scientists to stay in the country to continue their careers. Both these suggestions will require serious political commitment to implement — but they would go a long way towards fostering fresh scientific talent.

Senators Lamar Alexander (Republican, Tennessee) and Jeff Bingaman (Democrat, New Mexico), who commissioned the study, must now try to drum up support on Capitol Hill for the implementation of its recommendations. They face an uphill battle, given the size of the US budget deficit and inevitable political resistance to such concepts as further federal involvement in school education. The United States' competitors, in Europe and the Far East, also need to consider such measures, and might actually find some of them easier to implement.