US Still Tops In Innovation

I’m not very bullish on Europe, as I’ve previously pointed out.

Today, I’ve come upon some more evidence that the US is the engine of global capitalism/innovation/research: according to the RAND Corporation (a non-profit thinktank), 40% of global research and development spending occurs in the United States. The US outspends the EU (which has a larger population than the US).

The number of science and technology graduates is slowly increasing, but inflation-adjusted S&T salaries haven’t increased much in 20 years, leading many American students to believe that S&T jobs don’t pay well. The study reasons that the US is at the forefront of R&D, but needs to pay grads higher salaries to gain more student cachet, and needs to pump up spending to maintain our dominance.

RAND study: US still #1 in R&D, but sees areas of concern