U.S. Science and Engineering Research Flattens

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "The National Science Foundation is reporting that the number of published U.S. science and engineering articles plateaued in the 1990s, despite continued increases in funding and personnel for research and development. This came after two decades of continued growth. Since then, flattening has occurred in nearly all U.S. research disciplines and types of institutions. In contrast, Asian and EU research had significant increases in this period. They do point to one positive for the US, however: article quality. According to one of the researchers, 'the more often an article is cited by other publications, the higher quality it's believed to have. While citation is not a perfect indicator, U.S. publications are more highly cited than those from other countries.'"

Comments

Who's wondering why?

[Opportunist]

In the US, research has first of all be "pleasant" to whoever funds it. Yes, that's true for most countries, but nowhere else you'll find as much industrial and political influence into research. Try to do a research on, say, climate change and watch the government go crazy over it should you dare to come up with results that point to us as the reason for an increase in temperature.

Add the religious side and you'll see why Europe currently feels an influx of researchers, not only from "poor" countries where they can't get funding, but also a healthy dose of quite capable people from the US who prefer to ponder what their findings mean, not to ponder what they may write should they not want to be censored. It's Reneaissance all over again, where you can find whatever you want, but if you want to remain in the good standing and be respected as a researcher, you better find what government, industry and especially media want to hear, or you'll soon find yourself being attacked and badmouthed, and your reputation ruined.

Would you want to do research in that kind of climate?

Re:Who's wondering why?

[gtall]

"a lot of scientific research is pointless and doesn't help anybody"

Bingo, that kind of attitude would have prevented Einstein from getting funding today for "gravity studies". He and many others started quantum theory, they had no application they could point to. Biology is replete with these examples; modern drugs would be impossible without the previous theoretical work that was "pointless", not to mention all the advances in other disciplines that no one in those disciplines had any idea would be of use in the technology behind biology or medicine.

And you are right, many scientists do spend 40-50% of their time on begging for money, I and my fellow scientists here do as well. It's an insane way to fund scientists. I'm good at doing science, not writing goddamn grant proposals for some business school product to wonder about. I mostly do logic and math, try making a claim for money without tying it to some feature (security, reliability, etc.) that not only pollutes the grant proposal, but will waste gobs of my time both in feeding some application I was pushed into supporting and making it hard to do because I haven't the time to get the theory correct before I must somehow apply it.

Also, science progresses as much by its failures as its successes. In an atmosphere that only rewards applications, by definition it pisses on anything that might fail. The consequence is that scientists are pushed into small incremental steps that only extend established theory in a minor way rather than thinking far outside the box. Thinking outside the box can be abused, but so too can forcing us to only think inside the box.

Gerry

We always used foreign scientist/engineers

[rolfwind]

Look at:

nuclear weapons/research: Albert Einstein and many other exiles from Europe
computers: John Von Neumann (Hungarian)
rockets and space: America's space and rocket program was kickstarted by a nucleus of German scientists after the war bought here

That is not to say we don't have our own home grown talent - just that science is an international activity and we have been lucky enough to be able to draw the best and brightest, foreign or domestic, to our country.

Whether it remains so in the long run, I am not certain - it requires an open and free country (something we're losing) and enough wealth, of course, as cutting edge science often requires funds scientists usually don't have themselves and hence the US was a good place to find patronage.

Re:We always used foreign scientist/engineers

[NeverVotedBush]

But that is definitely changing. Corporations don't value research now. Some do - biotech is probably now the best example - but by and large, US companies are obsessed with acquisitions, splits, layoffs and wage cuts in order to provide the fastest, greatest profits to shareholders.

It is a short-sighted approach that is leading to the situation we are now finding ourselves in - Americans unable to do the work required in this technological society. As a culture we have made fun of scientists, valued the steroid-pumped athlete and the slash and burn executive. But innovators, researchers, teachers, etc - all of the professions that would have been able to prepare this country for the future - have been basically discarded.

No child left behind? How about a whole country. We are quickly becoming a third-world entity with nothing but poor and uneducated immigrants flocking here for the vision of what used to be. The people who were/are here are now unable to think critically, innovate, etc.

There are exceptions of course but this is the overall situation. Check any tech rag for an editorial - the critical shortage of US workers capable to do the jobs necessary to keep this country afloat. This is not a time to be like this. We are now dependent on foreign countries for manufacturing, energy, and a lot of raw materials. What do we bring to the table?

It seems all we bring are consumers of the crap we have to import. And that is bankrupting this country fast.

Re:We always used foreign scientist/engineers

[moeinvt]

"No child left behind?"

I think a major part of the problem is that the U.S. public education system has an overwhelming focus on bringing the slow learning underachievers up to par. Far too little is done to accelerate and unleash the potential of the best and brightest. Raise your hand if you were in the public education system and got all 'A' and 'B' grades while rarely or never bringing a book home with you. I susepct that most of the readers here were taking AP or college prep classes as well.

With idiotic programs like "No child left behind" the entire herd has to move at the pace of the slowest member. For example, I know an elementary school teacher that has a small group of students who are children of recent immigrants. They barely speak English, yet the school is supposed to make sure that they don't get "left behind"? Where do you think she needs to focus all of her extra effort? The phrase is emotionally pleasing, but the implementation has serious negative consequences (I HOPE they are unintended, but I'm not sure). I think that kids SHOULD be left behind a lot more frequently than they are.

I'd be in favor of getting the Federal government out of the public education system entirely. We should eliminate the Dept.of Education and distribute the entire department budget as block grants to the states for the next couple of years.

Re:Also

[arivanov]

I recently heard a excellent joke from a friend of mine who still works in scientific research:

Q: What is an American University?
A: This is a strange place where Russian professors teach Chinese students in English.

US tends to attract top researchers

[golodh]

As everyone knows, an important means for the US to get hold of top scientists and researchers is to attract them ... often from abroad. Just look at the engineering faculties such as those at MIT; about half of the Ph.D students are from abroad (India, China, Europe), and about one third to one half of the faculty.

The US continues to be attractive because it tends to offer the best facilities (laboratories, datasets, computers, funding) in the world. Plus it hosts some of the best researchers in the world. Taken together this of course attracts *other* very good researchers. This in turn results in articles that have a higher citation index than most. So far so good.

I believe that the US cannot realistically expect to continue to lead the world in basic scientific research. As a matter of fact, it has lost that position already in a number of fields. What I believe it *can* expect to do is to continue to lead the world in applying research and turning up with innovative products.

Why? Because part of it is cultural. People here are always willing to go out and build something for themselves, which is the essence of starting a business, and society as a whole is very much geared towards giving new ideas and new businesses a chance, weed out the failures, cherish the successes, and let those who failed try again. That's important. In e.g. Europe failure in a business venture attracts a heavy stigma. Not so in the US. In the US it's also relatively easy to hire people for a startup, and to fire them the minute things go wrong, or even if revenues are lower than expected. And last but not least ... in the US venture capitalists are thoroughly aware that they must sow ten potatoes to reap one truly outstanding venture, three reasonably ones, and perhaps six poor ones. Unless other countries can copy that, the US is at an advantage.

Now both China and India are busily trying to imitate the US in this respect, and especially China has made a lot of headway. But the US still has the lead. And to be honest ... who would want to go the China and learn Chinese when they can also go the to US and use the English they learned in school? Excepting Chinese of course. Ever tried to find your way in China? The US has a big cultural advantage when it comes to competing as a destination of choice.

The undertone of the article is a bit warning of course. Even if one were somehow able to revitalise the US primary and secondary school system *and* make it attractive for Americans to pursue a career in science and/or engineering instead of business management, law, marketing, the military, etc. etc., it would take about two decades for the results to become visible. Personally I would say that the best bet for the US is continue to do what it has traditionally been good at, which is to focus on first attracting and then absorbing those immigrant researchers and turning their research into products.

This is precisely why the US takes such an agressive stance on "Intellectual Property", and does whatever it can to make every country in the world respect US copyrights. It's of strategic importance.

This is also at the heart of the US immigration policy, which runs approximately as follows: "We want those of you if you are the best or one of the best in your field. Those we will welcome to stay, and offer the chance to join the club and become a citizen. Others will be required to enter as illegal immigrants."

It's a bit parasitic, but it works.

Less education emphasis on Science

[chipotlehero]

I go to a top 5 engineering school. Even there the emphasis is less and less on the actual science and more on business and so called leadership skills. People are being trained less in hard science and more in corporate ways. If you take an engineering class, from my experience, half the people don't care about being an engineer and want to get their MBA and be a manager and "make money".

Until we get rid of this crap that "The business of America is business" this will not change and we will continue to lose ground on the science front.