Geoscience Policy Monthly Review
january 2018
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education
NSF report on the state of U.S. science shows America in the lead as China rapidly advances
January 18, 2018
According to the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Science and Engineering Indicators 2018 report released on January 18, the U.S. is currently the global leader in science and technology (S&T), though our nation’s share of global S&T activities is declining as others continue to rise. As countries across the world have increasingly come to view scientific and technical capabilities as engines of economic growth, many have been escalating efforts and heavily investing to improve their S&T capabilities. Building on their relative strengths, China’s rapid, unprecedented, and sustained growth has been accompanied by S&T developments in India, South Korea, and other Asian countries.
This year’s report indicates that, in a global context, the U.S. invests the most in research and development (R&D), attracts the highest venture capital, awards the most advanced degrees, and is the largest producer in high-technology manufacturing sectors. However, U.S. leadership in the global science and engineering (S&E) landscape is being challenged. While the U.S. led in R&D expenditures in 2015 at $496 billion – comprising 26 percent of the global total – China was a close second at 21 percent. China has rapidly grown its R&D spending since 2000, at an average rate of 18 percent annually, with its focus primarily geared toward development rather than basic or applied research. Meanwhile, R&D spending in the U.S. only grew by four percent during the same time frame.
Along with the report, the National Sciences Board (NSB) released a policy companion statement that addresses the need to grow a STEM-capable U.S. workforce. The statement notes that the number of Americans with a four-year degree in S&E grew by 53 percent between 2000 and 2014; in China, this number increased by 360 percent. China’s investment in higher education and R&D has fueled the growth of its high-technology industries. The NSB emphasizes that, “As a nation, we must work together to ensure all segments of our population have access to affordable, high-quality education and training opportunities beginning as early as kindergarten and lasting well beyond graduation.”
The NSF’s Science and Engineering Indicators is a biennial, congressionally mandated report on U.S. progress in S&T. The report was also accompanied by a digest that includes 42 indicators highlighting issues of current opportunity or concern for policymakers.
Source: National Science Foundation
January 30, 2018
On January 30, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a hearing entitled “One Year Later: The American Innovation and Competitiveness Act.” One of the last bills President Barack Obama signed into law before his term ended (Public Law 114-329), the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act (AICA) was the most comprehensive science and technology policy legislation to be enacted since the America COMPETES Acts of 2007 and 2010. The AICA reauthorized and updated policies at the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and other federal science agencies. At the hearing, co-sponsors of the bill, Senators Cory Gardner (R-CO), Gary Peters (D-MI), John Thune (R-SD), and Bill Nelson (D-FL), reflected upon the American scientific enterprise and questioned the Director of NSF, Dr. France Córdova, and the Director of NIST, Dr. Walter Copan, about progress made by the agencies to implement the AICA.
In her testimony, Dr. Córdova highlighted NSF’s efforts to carry out the provisions of AICA by increasing transparency and accountability in the merit review process, appointing the agency's first Chief Officer for Research Facilities, determining community needs for mid-scale research infrastructure, establishing a STEM education advisory council, and expanding NSF’s Innovation Corps (I-Corps). On a similar note, Dr. Copan emphasized NIST’s commitment to improve cyber security, boost commercial and industrial applications, and increase effectiveness of the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership. In regard to laboratory program improvements, NIST will focus on emerging technology, including the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and the future bioeconomy. The AICA also instructs the Director of OSTP to carry out provisions of the act including reduction of administrative and regulatory burdens of federally funded researchers. Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) expressed her displeasure that there was no OSTP witness to testify as President Trump has yet to appoint a Director or Associate Directors for OSTP.
Senators Gardner and Peters noted that these are the most fascinating times for science, considering the major scientific breakthroughs in recent years, while also acknowledging the fierce international competition that underscores the need for a robust increase in NSF and NIST funding. Dr. Córdova highlighted that NSF supported all of the eight American Nobel Prize winners in 2017, including work that led to the discovery of gravitational waves through NSF’s LIGO program, which has been supported by Congress for the past 40 years. While the U.S. continues to function as a global leader in many areas of science and engineering, lawmakers at the hearing expressed concern over China’s ambitious investment in research and development funding, which has reached 21 percent of global total in 2015, according to the recent National Science Board’s biennial Science and Engineering Indicators report. When asked how limited budgets and continuing resolutions affect science agencies, the directors stated that budget restraints provide more ways to leverage private and agency partnerships, while shutdowns cause major disruptions for agency planning, travel, review panels, and visiting research.
Sources: Library of Congress; National Science Foundation; U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation