Increasing American Fellowship Support for Scientists and Engineers

Posted on December 6, 2006 10 Comments

A great research paper is available today from the Brookings Institution: Investing in the Best and Brightest: Increased Fellowship Support for American Scientists and Engineers by Richard B. Freeman. For those interesting in science and engineering education and/or economic policy I recommend it.

In 2005, the United States employed about 31 percent of the world’s scientist and engineer researchers and financed 35 percent of R&D while accounting for 5 percent of the world’s population and 21 percent of the world’s GDP…
The U.S. share of global science and engineering activity is declining, however, and will continue to decline

I agree the declining trend is likely to continue, mainly due to the improvement of science and engineering efforts worldwide, see, for example: Diplomacy and Science Research and – U.S. Slipping on Science – Phony Science Gap?.

The growth of high-tech employment in Silicon Valley and in university-based locations of scientific excellence suggests that innovation, production, and employment in high-tech fields occur largely in areas strong in basic science.10 The supply of scientists and engineers is a major factor in the location of these centers of excellence.

Again I agree. I am in danger of confirmation bias since this report basically reinforces what I believe – so of course I find it worthwhile.

While no one can be sure of the particular areas where an increased number of scientists and engineers might make their greatest contribution, our recent history is filled with examples where young innovative researchers have made major contributions to economic progress: The Internet. The biotech industry. The PC. The mathematics of cryptography that underpins Internet commerce.

Again I agree. This is why so many countries have been devoting significant resources to improving their science and technology infrastructure – the economic benefits of doing so.

Thirty years ago, many U.S.-educated PhD science and engineering graduates from Taiwan and Korea remained in the United States. Today, a larger proportion of these graduates return to their native countries. Such a pattern is a natural part of global economic progress.

Again I agree, this is a trend that is likely to work against the USA scientific and engineering centers of excellence and in favor of others. And actually it is a positive development. It is just one that indicates the USA needs to develop more internal science and engineers (or cede even more of that work to other countries).

Because investments in K-12 will improve the science and math education for many students who are likely to never consider science and engineering careers, moreover, they will invariably be less cost-effective than the proposed fellowship program, which focuses on highly able students who are interested in

Finally something I don’t necessarily agree with. He might be right, but I think it is an open question. And I would split increased funding between k-12 and higher education (though truly I would need to do more research first). It could very well be that k-12 investments create a pool of great candidates for fellowships that would not otherwise be available. And nothing her says how much that would cost (it could be that only 30% of the benefit goes to increased science and engineering graduate success but the overall payoff is so large that even just 30% directly benefiting the target is higher than 100% of the fellowship benefit). Perhaps for the cost of 100 fellowships with smart k-12 initiatives you can create 1000 more science and engineering graduate students down the road. Plus the benefits to raising the level of science and engineering in others can also provide worthwhile benefits.

Related: Engineering Graduates: USA, China, India – Worldwide Science and Engineering Doctoral Degree Data – Proposed Legislation: Graduate Scholar Awards in Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math – Engineering the Future Economy – China challenges dominance of USA, Europe and Japan – Basic Science Research Funding – Science and Engineering in Global Economics – Top degree for S&P 500 CEOs? Engineering – Engineers in the Workplace – Shortage of Engineers?

As I have mentioned before, I work for ASEE on the IT systems in support of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Operation Center (the ASEE portion of the program), along with the other fellowship programs at ASEE). This blog is my own and is not affiliated with ASEE.

10 thoughts on “Increasing American Fellowship Support for Scientists and Engineers”

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  8. Anonymous

    Even if the declining trend in the US continues I still see us as being a large player for a time to come. I think this is, however, how globalization works and eventually all things, not simply science and engineering, will balance out globably.

  9. Alan Jones

    You raise some interesting points but I don’t think just throwing money at K-12 education is going to solve the problem. What the US needs is to have a culture that encourages technological development and education more than celebrity gossip. Unforuntatly you can’t just spend money to change the country to be that way.

  10. Anonymous

    There has been quite a bit of talk the last few years about increasing government incentives to support students studying science, engineering and math. View the current America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technolog

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