UNESCO SCIENCE REPORT

A world in search of an effective growth strategy
A CLOSER LOOK AT COUNTRIES
AND REGIONS
More countries are covered by the UNESCO Science Report
this time than ever before. This reflects the growing
acceptance worldwide of STI as a driver of development. The
following section summarizes the most insightful trends and
developments emerging from Chapters 4 to 27.
Canada (Chapter 4) has managed to dodge the worst
shockwaves from the US financial crisis of 2008, thanks to
a robust banking industry and strong energy and natural
resource sectors, but this is now changing with the decline in
global oil prices since 2014.
Two important weaknesses highlighted by the UNESCO
Science Report 2010 persist: a tepid private-sector
commitment to innovation and the lack of a strong national
agenda for talent and training in scientific and engineering
fields. Academic research remains relatively strong, overall,
with publications outperforming the OECD average in terms
of average citation rate, but Canada is slipping in higher
education rankings. An additional vulnerability has emerged:
a policy agenda focused almost exclusively on using science
to power commerce, often to the detriment of critical ‘public
good’ science, alongside the downsizing of government
science agencies and departments.
A recent government review has identified a possible
disconnect between Canada’s strengths in science and
technology, on the one hand, and industrial R&D and
economic competitiveness, on the other. Although
overall industrial R&D remains weak, four industries
display considerable strength: aerospace products and
parts manufacturing; ICTs; oil and gas extraction; and
pharmaceutical manufacturing.
Between 2010 and 2013, Canada’s GERD/GDP fell to its lowest
level in a decade (1.63%). In parallel, the share of business
funding of R&D receded from 51.2% (2006) to 46.4%. The
pharmaceutical, chemical, primary and fabricated metals
industries have all experienced an erosion in R&D spending.
Consequently, the number of personnel employed in
industrial R&D shrank by 23.5% between 2008 and 2012.
Notable developments since 2010 include a renewed focus
on polar research and knowledge, enhanced support for
universities, growing applications of genomics through
Genome Canada, a Venture Capital Action Plan (2013), a
Canadian partnership with the EU’s Eureka programme and
an International Education Strategy to attract more foreign
students to Canada’s shores and maximize opportunities for
global partnerships.
In the United States of America (Chapter 5), GDP has been
on the upswing since 2010. However, the recovery from the
2008–2009 recession remains fragile. Despite the decline
in unemployment levels, wages have stagnated. There is
evidence that the economic stimulus package of 2009,
formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act, may have buffered immediate job losses for those
working in science and technology, since a significant portion
of this stimulus package went to R&D.
Since 2010, federal investment in R&D has stagnated in
the wake of the recession. Despite this, industry has largely
maintained its commitment to R&D, particularly in growing,
high-opportunity sectors. As a result, total R&D spending has
dipped only slightly and the balance of spending has shifted
further towards industrial sources since 2010. GERD is now
rising and the business sector’s investment in innovation
appears to be accelerating.
Most of the 11 agencies that conduct the bulk of federally
funded R&D have seen flat R&D budgets for the past five
years. The Department of Defense has even experienced a
steep decline, reflecting the winding down of the intervention
in Afghanistan and Iraq and the lesser need for related
technologies. The decline in non-defence R&D appears to
be due to a combination of decreasing federal budgets
for specific research and the budget sequester instigated
by Congress in 2013, which has enacted US$1 trillion in
automatic cuts to the federal budget to reduce the deficit.
This trend is having the greatest impact on basic research
and public-interest science in such areas as life sciences,
energy and climate, which happen to be priority areas
for the executive branch of government. In order to take
up the ‘grand challenges’ in priority areas announced by
the president in 2013, the executive is fostering tripartite
industry–non–profit–government partnerships. Some
milestones built on this collaborative model are the BRAIN
Initiative, the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership and the
American Business Act on Climate Pledge that received a
US$140 billion commitment from its industrial partners in
2015.
While business R&D has been thriving, budget restrictions
have resulted in deep cuts to universities’ research budgets.
Universities have responded by seeking new sources of
funding from industry and relying heavily on temporary
contract or adjunct workers. This is affecting the morale of
both young and established scientists and inciting some
to change career course or emigrate. In parallel, the rate of
return migration among foreign students based in the USA
is rising as levels of development in their country of origin
improve.
Chapter 1
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