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Description

Trends in the American science and engineering (S&E) workforce and national research and development (R&D) funding patterns and priorities have troubling implications for the economic and national security of our nation. Especially worrisome are:

  • A general lack of interest among American-born youth, especially women and minorities, in pursuing education in the physical sciences, mathematics, environmental sciences, and engineering at the undergraduate and graduate levels;
  • A rapidly accelerating accumulation of intellectual capital, including an educated S&E workforce, in China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan;
  • A long-term decline in the overall Federal investment in R&D as a percentage of gross domestic product, especially among the physical sciences and engineering; and
  • Reduced Department of Defense funding for research throughout the 1990s, a trend that has exacerbated the general decline in the physical sciences and engineering, despite the importance of these fields to the development of new military capabilities.

Document Type

Policy Brief

Publication Date

4-2004

Publication

Defense Horizons

Publisher

National Defense University Press

City

Washington, DC

The Science and Engineering Workforce and National Security

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