The State of U.S. Science and Engineering 2020
January 2020
This report covers trends in and the relative global position of the U.S. S&E enterprise, including education, workforce, R&D, industry output, and innovation. Data show mixed trends. The United States continues to perform the most R&D, award the most S&E doctoral degrees, and account for significant numbers of S&E research articles and citations worldwide. However, growth of S&E capabilities in other nations, particularly China, has outpaced that of the United States along several dimensions. The United States has seen its relative share of global S&T activity flatten or decline, even as its absolute activity levels kept rising.
Continue Reading >Academic Research and Development
January 2020
This report examines R&D performed by U.S. higher education institutions. It discusses funding by source and S&E field for R&D activities and equipment and provides information on research space. Academic R&D has grown every year since 1975 and remains focused on basic research. Most of it is performed by a small percentage of U.S. higher education institutions. The federal government funds over half of academic R&D, although institutional support represents an increasing share. Growth in research space has largely been in biological and biomedical sciences, while equipment expenditures are similar to those a decade ago.
Continue Reading >Invention, Knowledge Transfer, and Innovation
January 2020
This report covers trends in the interrelated system of invention, knowledge transfer, and innovation. Patent and trademark applications, which are indicators of invention, more than doubled globally between 2008 and 2017, with middle-income countries worldwide rapidly increasing their participation. In the United States, technology transfer metrics for the federal government and academic institutions include invention disclosure, licensing, and collaboration activities. The last section covers venture capital investment and innovation. Between 2014 and 2016, about 17% of U.S. firms introduced a new product or processes.
Continue Reading >Research and Development: U.S. Trends and International Comparisons
January 2020
The U.S. R&D enterprise relies on businesses, federal and nonfederal governments, higher education institutions, and other nonprofit organizations. This report identifies trends in R&D performance and funding and compares them to those of the world’s other major economies. The U.S. annual total of R&D has expanded steadily since 2010 (totaling $548 billion in 2017), mostly due to sizable annual increases in business R&D performance. In 2017, the United States remained the world’s top R&D performer. However, the global concentration of R&D continues to shift from the United States and Europe to South Asia and East-Southeast Asia.
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