January 18, 2012

The United States remains the global leader in supporting science and engineering (S&E) research and development, but only by a slim margin that could soon be overtaken by rapidly increasing Asian investments in knowledge-intensive economies, according to a new study by the National Science Board, the policymaking body for the National Science Foundation.

Read complete report here.

The biennial report, Science and Engineering Indicators (SEI), highlights trends and factors that have an impact on the nation’s economy, competitiveness, and innovation capacity. SEI provides a broad base of quantitative information on the U.S. and international science and engineering enterprise. The indicators reported in SEI are intended to contribute to an understanding of the current environment and to inform the development of future policies.

SEI is factual and policy-neutral. It does not offer policy options and it does not make policy recommendations. SEI employs a variety of presentational styles - tables, figures, narrative text, bulleted text, Web-based links, highlights, introductions, conclusions, reference lists - to make the data accessible to readers with different information needs and different information- processing preferences.

Source: National Science Board