Saturday, April 29, 2006
Our Ph.D. Deficit
Our Ph.D. Deficit
By NORMAN R. AUGUSTINE and BURTON RICHTER
May 4, 2005
The unprecedented opportunities for American workers in the latter half of the 20th century came from creating new jobs, not from protecting old ones. A major component of job creation is investment in science research. Our rivals in Asia and Europe have clearly figured this out.
Research, particularly in the physical sciences and engineering, is the foundation of our innovative economy. It has spawned the transistor, fiber optics, integrated circuits, wireless communication, liquid crystal displays, lasers, the Web, the GPS, hybrid automobiles and medical technologies far too numerous to list. With these new technologies have come new, high-wage jobs. MIT alone -- faculty, alumni and staff -- has created 5,000 companies in the last 50 years.
When an innovation is found, the U.S. entrepreneurial spirit is quick to develop, produce and market it, creating new jobs and revenue. We must be prepared to develop the next innovation rapidly to ensure that the jobs it spawns reside in the U.S. Such a nimble economy requires venture capital, a level international playing field, technological infrastructure, a well-educated work force and a healthy budget for research.
To keep feeding America's great innovation machine, robust investments in research are a must. Unfortunately, federal funding for research in the physical sciences and engineering has been stagnant for two decades in inflation-adjusted dollars. As a percentage of GDP, federal investment in physical science research is half of what it was in 1970.
The technologies listed above came from decades-old research. A flatlined research budget won't produce the same economic growth for tomorrow. Nor will it keep us ahead of the competition much longer. Through investment in research and education, our competitors have increased their numbers of science and engineering Ph.D.s. It's no wonder that foreign applications for U.S. patents are growing remarkably and that the foreign high-tech labor force is drawing jobs away from America.
In China, R&D expenditures rose 350% between 1991 and 2001, and the number of science and engineering Ph.D.s soared 535%. In South Korea, R&D expenditures increased more modestly -- by 220% -- and Ph.D.s by 150%. In that same period, the number of applications for U.S. patents from each country grew by 400%. Publications in scientific journals provide another indicator of the global challenge to our scientific primacy. In 1986, the U.S. share of articles in such journals world-wide was 39%. By 2001 it had slipped to 31%, and it is still declining.
There is another disturbing trend. Fewer Americans are pursuing physical science and engineering careers. At the graduate level, enrollments are down more than 20% since 1993. And with abundant opportunities in their own countries, foreigners are not flocking to study in our universities in the same numbers they did a decade ago. To make science and engineering careers more attractive to our youth, we must make a stronger commitment to funding research. In the 21st century, that in part must be a federal responsibility. In today's world of global competition and Wall Street demands for quarterly growth, the time-frame for discovery is too long, and the risks of failure too great, for a company -- even a group of companies -- to shoulder alone.
Mr. Augustine is retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp. Mr. Richter, former director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1976.
By NORMAN R. AUGUSTINE and BURTON RICHTER
May 4, 2005
The unprecedented opportunities for American workers in the latter half of the 20th century came from creating new jobs, not from protecting old ones. A major component of job creation is investment in science research. Our rivals in Asia and Europe have clearly figured this out.
Research, particularly in the physical sciences and engineering, is the foundation of our innovative economy. It has spawned the transistor, fiber optics, integrated circuits, wireless communication, liquid crystal displays, lasers, the Web, the GPS, hybrid automobiles and medical technologies far too numerous to list. With these new technologies have come new, high-wage jobs. MIT alone -- faculty, alumni and staff -- has created 5,000 companies in the last 50 years.
When an innovation is found, the U.S. entrepreneurial spirit is quick to develop, produce and market it, creating new jobs and revenue. We must be prepared to develop the next innovation rapidly to ensure that the jobs it spawns reside in the U.S. Such a nimble economy requires venture capital, a level international playing field, technological infrastructure, a well-educated work force and a healthy budget for research.
To keep feeding America's great innovation machine, robust investments in research are a must. Unfortunately, federal funding for research in the physical sciences and engineering has been stagnant for two decades in inflation-adjusted dollars. As a percentage of GDP, federal investment in physical science research is half of what it was in 1970.
The technologies listed above came from decades-old research. A flatlined research budget won't produce the same economic growth for tomorrow. Nor will it keep us ahead of the competition much longer. Through investment in research and education, our competitors have increased their numbers of science and engineering Ph.D.s. It's no wonder that foreign applications for U.S. patents are growing remarkably and that the foreign high-tech labor force is drawing jobs away from America.
In China, R&D expenditures rose 350% between 1991 and 2001, and the number of science and engineering Ph.D.s soared 535%. In South Korea, R&D expenditures increased more modestly -- by 220% -- and Ph.D.s by 150%. In that same period, the number of applications for U.S. patents from each country grew by 400%. Publications in scientific journals provide another indicator of the global challenge to our scientific primacy. In 1986, the U.S. share of articles in such journals world-wide was 39%. By 2001 it had slipped to 31%, and it is still declining.
There is another disturbing trend. Fewer Americans are pursuing physical science and engineering careers. At the graduate level, enrollments are down more than 20% since 1993. And with abundant opportunities in their own countries, foreigners are not flocking to study in our universities in the same numbers they did a decade ago. To make science and engineering careers more attractive to our youth, we must make a stronger commitment to funding research. In the 21st century, that in part must be a federal responsibility. In today's world of global competition and Wall Street demands for quarterly growth, the time-frame for discovery is too long, and the risks of failure too great, for a company -- even a group of companies -- to shoulder alone.
Mr. Augustine is retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp. Mr. Richter, former director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1976.
# posted by reckoner @ 12:58 PM 
