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National Science Board Report Finds US Dominance in Science is Slipping

posted by janrinok on Sunday January 19 2020, @12:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the lern-ur-science-fm-Twitter dept.

DeathMonkey writes:

The U.S. share of global science and technology activity has shrunk in some areas even as absolute activity has continued to grow, as China and other Asian countries have invested in science and engineering education and increased their research spending.

That's one of the main takeaways of the "State of U.S. Science and Engineering" 2020 report, published by the National Science Board Wednesday. The report has historically been published every other year, but starting with this year's edition, the NSB is transitioning its format from a single report published every two years to a series of shorter reports issued more frequently.

"While the U.S. remains a leading player, other countries have seen the benefits of investing in research and education and are following our example," said Julia Phillips, chair of the NSB Science and Engineering Policy Committee. "While China is not the only story, its dramatic annual rate of R&D [research and development] growth is impressive. Other countries have seen the benefits of investing in research, and China is on a path to shortly become the world's largest R&D performer.

National Science Board report finds US dominance in science is slipping
State of U.S. Science and Engineering - 2020 report

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 19 2020, @03:54PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 19 2020, @03:54PM (#945326) Journal

    That's an impossible question to answer, you don't know until the research has been done.

    Really? You already gave a couple examples, cars and the internet where we could guess and get some of it right - particularly when we ask the scientists and engineers rather than the clueless common man.

    Fair point, but keep in mind that due to inflation and the increasing cost of doing anything, that it needs to increase just to stay put. Much of the low hanging fruit type of research has already been done. On top of that, there is money being wasted on things like gender research and string theory that just makes matters worse and funding for climate research is getting worse.

    Inflation is irrelevant. There is no significant cost to science from how many zeros are on your currency. The increased cost of doing anything is not just due to harder problems. It's also due to the public funding model which disengages the cost of a project from the scientific output of a project.

    On top of that, there is money being wasted on things like gender research and string theory that just makes matters worse and funding for climate research is getting worse.

    So what on climate research? It's vastly overfunded and overstaffed as is. And you already claimed that "you don't know until the research has been done", so how can you have these judgments about gender research and string theory? Maybe the next trillion dollar industry is hiding in present day gender research, right? /sarc