Sujeet
US Losing The Tech Edge AFP[ FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2005 02:10:07 AM]
WASHINGTON: The US share of worldwide high-tech exports has dropped from 31% to 18% over the past 20 years, in what could foreshadow the loss of the country’s leadership position in science and technology, a blue ribbon expert panel warned.
The Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, created by leading US companies and scientific and business associations, sounded the alarm Wednesday with a report indicating that the United States was gradually slipping as the world leader in scientific and technological research.
“US employers are being forced to look overseas, as they face shortages of qualified technically trained talent in the US,” said Craig Barrett, chief executive officer of Intel Corporation, a member of the task force.
“If this trend continues, new technologies, and the constellation of support industries surrounding them, will increasingly develop overseas, not here,” he added.
The signs of trouble outlined in the report range from a slowdown in the growth of technical research to stagnant government funding for fundamental sciences.
As the US share in global high-tech exports was dropping, China, South Korea and other emerging Asian economies boosted theirs from 7% in 1980 to 25% in 2001, according to the study.
Moreover, high-tech industries in the 1990s grew faster in many Asian countries than in the United States.
China’s output in that sector, for example, shot up more than eight-fold — from $30 billion to $257 billion over the decade— while in the United States, it just doubled from $423 billion to $940 billion.
The root cause of that phenomenon may lie in the decreasing interest in science and engineering displayed by young Americans, said the report.
Enrollment in science and engineering classes at US universities dropped 10% for US citizens between 1994 and 2001, according to the report, but increased by 25% for foreign-born students.
As a result, US institutions of higher learning are now awarding far fewer science and engineering degrees than its leading foreign competitors.
In 2000, Asian universities accounted for almost 1.2 million such degrees and their European counterparts for nearly 850,000.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1024398.cms
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