McKinsey: Given the economy and the budget deficits, governments are under huge fiscal pressure right now. What are some issues that should be priorities, even under these conditions?
Ray O. Johnson: One of the issues will be research and development. As the fiscal pressures take effect, the challenge will be how to keep research and development alive, making sure that we invest in the future and take advantage of some of the big changes that are going to be happening in material science, biotechnology, and big data.
How do we make sure that government keeps investing? The challenges we face are huge, and solving them requires commitment. Energy, for example, that’s a good one. Cybersecurity is another good one. We’re getting to the point—with cloud computing, mobility, and the Internet of Things—that everything has an IP address, and that change opens up a surface area for attack that is just unbelievable. It’s a concentration of data that makes for a big target—difficult to get to, but a very big target. So there will be challenges for the government and for the private sector. It is going to take big money and entail big risk, and really only governments can take on those kinds of challenges. As governments meet their fiscal-pressure demands, keeping the focus on the future and not just on the present will be important.