World R&D spending – ~$1.7 trillion.

THE NUMBERS: Scientific research & development spending, 2013* –

* Figures from OECD and National Science Foundation. The 2013 figure for the U.S. is an estimate based on OECD’s overall calculation, as the U.S. has not yet published a final 2013 result. EU figures for 2000 include all 28 current members, including the Central and Eastern European states joining in after 2004.

WHAT THEY MEAN:

Endless Frontier, the 1945 civilian-science manifesto by wartime research chief Vannevar Bush, cites information technology, life-science, and consumer-product breakthroughs of the 1930s (radar and radio, sulfa drugs and penicillin, rayon and air conditioners) as evidence of a possible brilliant future:

“More jobs, higher wages, shorter hours, more abundant crops,” “learning to live without the deadening drudgery which has been the burden of the common man for ages past,” “control of our insect enemies,” “means of defense against aggression,” “prevention or cure of diseases” and so forth.

To bring these dreams to earth, Endless Frontier suggested a permanent government commitment to scientific research and education: federal investment in basic research, scholarships for science and engineering students, transparent patent laws, a research and development tax credit, and so on. Bush – unrelated to the political family of the same name – seems to have worried that idealistic hopes and predictions of better lives might not be enough to get all this done. So he adds a mildly nationalistic warning:

“A nation which depends upon others for its new basic scientific knowledge will be slow in its industrial progress and weak in its competitive position in world trade.”

Seven decades later, the Obama administration hopes to win approval for a $135 billion science budget, replete with interesting follow-ons to the 1930s breakthroughs: deep-space exploration, carbon capture, anti-viral medicine, nano-engineered materials, cyber-security and more. Apart from the merits of this work, how does it fit into the 21st-century scientific world?

The OECD’s annual Main Science and Technology Indicators provides figures for research spending, scientific employment, and more in the 31 OECD member countries plus Argentina, China, Taiwan, Russia, Singapore, and South Africa. Their most recent estimates find the U.S. home to 1.25 million working researchers, out of roughly 6.3 million worldwide.* This would be 16 percent of world researchers; by comparison, the U.S. has about 4 percent of all world workers.

Measured by spending, the OECD finds about $1.6 trillion in R&D worldwide as of 2013, with the U.S.’ roughly $470 billion commitment the world’s largest. National Science Foundation figures allow us to add 15 more countries – India, Pakistan, Brazil, Colombia, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Iran, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Serbia – which would bring the total to $1.7 trillion, or about 1.65 percent of world GDP. The U.S. would then account for 28 percent of the total. The striking fact in the OECD tallies, though, is not the American figure (nor the European one), but Asia’s post-millennial research boom. Korea, spending 4.15 percent of GDP on research, is now nearly level with Israel as the world’s top scientific investor; China’s spending, having soared from $32 billion to $336 billion since 2000, now makes up 20 percent of the world total. As shares of one region rise, the shares for others must fall: the U.S.’ share has accordingly dropped from 38 percent in 2000 to 2013’s 28 percent.

Bush’s first justification for public science is, of course, more important than his second. Most scientific advances are not national prizes but general benefits, and wherever the 21st-century analogues of Endless Frontiers’ 1930s wonders crop up – ultra-broadband Internet, HIV vaccines, nano-robots, intelligent clothing, zero-emission factories and planes – the world will be better off. Nonetheless, as the 2015 R&D budgets maneuver through the reefs of sequesters and short-term savings, Bush might be thoughtfully concerned about the longer trends.

FURTHER READING:

Policy –

Endless Frontier, 1945: http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/nsf50/vbush1945.htm

The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy explains R&D budget priorities, 2015: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/02/02/investing-america-s-future-through-rd-innovation-and-stem-education-president-s-fy-2

Data –

OECD’s Main Science and Technology Indicators 2014 counts researchers, research spending, and more for its own 31 members plus China, Russia, Taiwan, and South Africa: http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=MSTI_PUB

And the National Science Foundation has counts of research spending, scientists, Ph.D. grants and students, and more in its S&E Indicators 2014: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/index.cfm/etc/tables.htm

Israel’s 4.2 percent of GDP remains the world’s highest rate, though just barely above Korea’s 4.15 percent. The Weizmann Institute of Science: http://www.weizmann.ac.il/

And, drawing on NSF and OECD, an illustrative spectrum of R&D commitments relative to GDP, by country:

Sweden3.3

A distressing multi-country science poll –

The NSF’s 2014 report polls the U.S., the “European Union” (as a group, not including Bulgaria and Romania), Russia, China, Japan, Korea, and Malaysia on awareness of basic scientific and medical facts and concepts. Samples:

(a) Americans edge Koreans for the overall best score, with especially good scores on knowing that (i) lasers are a way of focusing light, (ii) radiation is a natural occurrence, (iii) antibiotics will not kill viruses, and (iv) atoms are bigger than electrons. But Americans were next-to-last for awareness of evolution, with only 48 percent realizing (or agreeing) that humans evolved from earlier species. For this question, Russians were last with 44 percent, and Malaysians weren’t polled.

(b) Koreans are more aware of the Big Bang than anyone else. Japanese are tops in awareness of plate tectonics and evolution, but puzzlingly bad at guessing whether atoms or electrons are bigger.

c) Malaysia should brush up a bit on medicine: only 8 percent knew that antibiotics won’t help you with a virus.

(d) Only 74 percent of Americans know that the earth goes around the sun! No country in the poll can take much pride in its response to this question, though. Koreans did best at 86 percent, which isn’t all that great. EU residents fared laughably worst – only 66 percent got it right – meaning 150 million Europeans are wandering around thinking the sun is a little glowing ball circling a giant stationary earth.

See Table 7.8 for the results: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/index.cfm/etc/tables.htm

And for dim-witted Europeans, the Copernicus historic site at Poland’s Frombork Cathedral is a chance to visit and learn: http://frombork.art.pl/en/

And last, two updates on Bush’s hopes from 1945 –

(a) Control of our insect enemies – After the 1960s’ overuse of pesticides, Bush’s weirdly paranoid vision has been replaced by a wary human-arthropod détente. The USDA’s lab for natural and biological pest control: http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/site_main.htm?modecode=60-66-25-00

(b) Living without deadening drudgery – In some unreported good news for workers, Bush’s prediction has worked out better than most probably realize. The Conference Board says that while the average American worker of 1950 spent 1,909 hours on the job, the average for 2013 was 1,707 hours. This is in the mid-range for the wealthy world, 350 hours more than the apparently slothful Dutch, 500 fewer than hard-pressed Mexicans, and 700 fewer than Singapore’s 2400-hour working year.  The 200-hour savings means 25 fewer 8-hour working days than in 1950 each year. The Conference Board has annual work hours for 61 countries: https://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/index.cfm?id=27762

Today’s workers are also a lot safer than their grandparents. In 1950, 8,300 of the year’s 43 million employed Americans were killed in workplace accidents. 2013 saw 4,406 fatal accidents among 141 million workers – the lowest absolute number on record, and an 85-percent decline in workplace fatality rates since the Endless Frontier era. Data from the BLS: http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshcfoi1.htm

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