| The resurgence in
R&D investment in the United States from 1994 to 2000 slowed
almost entirely by 2002. An uncertain economy rocked by turbulence
in financial markets and terrorism led to reduced output in both
the manufacturing and service sectors as well as subsequent slowdowns
in R&D expenditures in many sectors. At the same time, the Federal
Government's role grew in terms of both R&D funding and performance,
reversing the decade-long divergence of private and public funding
of R&D.
Recent acts of terrorism and military mobilizations have reversed
a declining trend in the U.S. Government's share of defense-related
R&D. Other countries throughout the world have maintained their
focus on nondefense R&D and have attempted to take proactive
steps toward intensifying and focusing their national R&D activity.
These steps range from increasing general government spending to
fostering high-technology industrial clusters.
The locus of R&D activities is also shifting as a reflection
of broad technological changes and new scientific research opportunities.
Industrial R&D is increasingly undertaken in service (versus
manufacturing) industries, and much of the industrial R&D growth
has occurred in biotechnology and IT. Moreover, Federal research
funds have shifted markedly toward the life sciences during the
past several years.
In addition to R&D performance and funding, the organization
of R&D activities also has undergone substantial change. At
the corporate level, R&D activities are increasingly globally
driven by the need to support or develop markets and foreign production
sites and the need for science-based technologies. A parallel trend
is the increasing reliance on external technology sources and R&D
alliances to share costs, risks, and resources and promote the development
of innovative capabilities, increasingly relevant for long-term
competitiveness.
These issues not only affect the performance and policy implications
of R&D activity in the United States and overseas but also present
new challenges for the development of S&T indicators (National
Research Council 2000). In part to address these challenges,
NSF, through the Bureau of the Census, which conducts the NSF Survey
of Industrial Research and Development, and BEA, which conducts
the international investment surveys, have initiated a statistical
linking project to further explore the international composition
of R&D activity in the United States. Fuller investigations
and tracking of the apparent growth in the web of partnerships among
firms, universities, and Federal agencies and laboratories in conducting
R&D are warranted. An understanding of this dynamic and changing
scenario is essential in a U.S. economy increasingly driven by the
production, diffusion, and exploitation of science-based knowledge.
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