Innovation in the US

The BankBoston Economics Department did a study titled "MIT: The Impact of Innovation." Among its conclusions was that MIT graduates founded 4,000 companies, creating at least 1.1 million jobs worldwide and generating sales of $232 billion.

…every state in the country has universities trying to do the same. "America has 4,000 colleges and universities," said Allan E. Goodman, president of the Institute of International Education. "The rest of the world combined has 7,768 institutions of higher education. In the State of California alone, there about 130 colleges and universities. There only 14 countries in the world that have more than that number.

To keep moving ahead, there must be a 10 to 12% increase each year for the next five to seven years in the budget of key research funding agencies-the National Institute for Science and Technology, the Nationals Science Foundation, the Department of Energy's Office of Science, and the Department of Defense research accounts. Unfortunately, federal funding for research in physical and mathematical sciences and engineering, as a share of GDP, actually declined by 37% between 1970 and 2004. At a time when we need to be doubling or investments in basic research to overcome the ambition and education gaps, we are actually cutting that funding.

According to the National Science Board, the percentage of scientific papers written by Americans has fallen 10% since 1992. The percentage of American papers published in the top physics Journal, Physical Review, has fallen from 61% to 29% since 1983. And now we are starting to see a surge in patents awarded to Asian countries. From 1980 to 2003, Japan's share of the world industrial patents rose from 12% to 21%, and Taiwan's from 0% to 3%. By contrast, the US share of patents has fallen from 60% to 52% since 1980.

The World is Flat, Thomas L. Friedman, 2005 to, p. 244, 268-9