Natural Selections - The Lab Rat Race

Oligarchy and Occupy
by Benjamin Campbell

RNA: Life’s Indispensible Molecule, by James Darnell
reviewed by Joseph Luna

The Lab Rat Race

By Martin Ligr & Mary Abraham

June 2004

Editorials

In May 2004, a New York Times article declared that the US is losing its world dominance in science. Natural Selections decided to investigate this claim and survey the current state of American science. We have concluded that although there may be one or two clouds on the horizon, the sky is not about to fall in on US science.

What are the appropriate criteria to judge different nations’ scientific contributions? Although most would agree on qualities that make science “good”, they are not easy to quantify. The most easily measured indicators of scientific performance are total number of articles produced (scientific output) and the number of times these articles were referenced in other publications (citations). However, neither of these indicators is ideal: Total scientific output provides up-to-date quantitative information, but a qualitative component is missing. Number of citations contains both qualitative and quantitative components, but due to the speed of information flow within the scientific community it provides mostly retrospective insight. Other potential indicators for measuring scientific success include the number of researchers listed on ISIHighlyCited.com (an index of the most influential scientists based on the citations of their articles published within the past 20 years), or the number of Nobel prizes awarded. Again, these criteria document mostly past performance.

Direct comparisons between nations are also confounded by different regional emphases on different scientific fields, as well as by latent cultural and institutional biases. For example, in a recent article in PLoS, Holmgren and Schnitzer compared the relative prominence of Latin America’s ecology papers with the rest of the world. They concluded that the proportion of Latin American papers getting into the top tier of journals and the number of Latin American scientists becoming ISI highly cited researchers was lower than expected.

Despite the problems inherent in using some of these criteria to assess the relative scientific dominance of nations or to try to predict trends, what is the picture that emerges when we use some of these classifications to try to judge the current state of US science? Using indicators such as highly cited researchers or Nobel prizes awarded, the USA appears to have a commanding lead over its nearest rivals (see Figure 1).

The foundation for the world dominance of US science has been built during the 40 years of the Cold War, when successive administrations recognized strong science as one of the prerequisites for containment of the Soviet Union. In terms of financial resources allocated to science, the US is still in a dominant position, and its commitment to funding research is evidenced using a number of criteria. In 2001, the US spent around $250 billion on research and development (R&D), around $50 billion more than the combined total spent by the EU and $150 billion more than Japan, the second ranked nation for R&D spending. The US is in the top ranking group of nations spending the highest percentage of their gross domestic product (GDP) on research, with the US, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, several Western European countries and Canada all spending in the range of 2 to 3% of their GDP on R&D. US academic R&D spending amounts currently to 0.35% of the GDP. The US is also amongst the top four nations in the world in terms of expenditure on R&D per capita. Is the US spending its scientific funds wisely? Research space, a measure of research infrastructure, has grown 38% between 1988 and 2001 (less than 30% of research space was rated as adequate, though). Another measure of the quality of scientific infrastructure is equipment intensity, the percentage of total annual R&D expenditures from current funds devoted to research equipment. This proportion was lower in 2001 (4.6%) than it was in 1983 (5.7%). Congress has asked the National Science Foundation (NSF) to investigate the extent to which a lack of instrumentation prevents the academic research community from undertaking cutting-edge science. Despite the possible slowdown in procurement of equipment, the US scientific infrastructure rated, as a whole, number one in the 2003 IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook.

Another factor contributing to the US scientific dominance is the sheer allure that it holds for so many of the best researchers from all over the world. For example, the 2000 census showed that 40% of US scientists with a doctorate are foreign born. Good funding, together with a strong meritocratic culture, relative lack of bureaucracy, and high living standards have helped the US to attract and retain international scientists. In the period 1998–2001, 76% of foreign doctoral degree recipients in science and engineering (S&E) fields planned to stay in the US, and 54% had firm offers to do so. Many foreign scientists also appreciate the American entrepreneurial spirit and the success with which US academic institutions have forged links with industry to commercialize research output: More than 3,200 US patents were granted to US academic institutes in 2001, a tenfold increase since the 1970s.

What are the main problems facing US science? While employment in the R&D sector has been growing steadily, there are concerns about how sustainable the growth will be. The US scientific workforce is aging, and rising retirements are expected over the next few decades. The replacement of retired workers is an issue mentioned prominently in the 2004 Science and Engineering Indicators Report, produced for the President and Congress by the National Science Board (NSB). US science is heavily reliant on foreign scientists, and increased visa problems following 9/11, as well as ongoing efforts by other countries to provide incentives to retain or attract back their nationals could produce a decline in the US science workforce. The NSB has also predicted that a shortfall of foreign workers is unlikely to be compensated for by US natives, if the current trend of decline in the number of US-born science students continues.

Are there any special conditions that affect biomedical fields in particular? It is instructive to compare the situation in biomedical and physical sciences. In the time period 1975–2001, academic expenditures in biomedical sciences have been increasing nearly exponentially (from 2.1 to 9.3 billions of dollars), whereas increases in funding of sciences such as physics were significantly lagging behind (increase from 0.9 to 2.6 billions of dollars). This seems to explain the anecdotal evidence (provided in the NYT article) that output of physical sciences is stagnating. But is the favorable fiscal situation of biological and biomedical sciences reflected in their scientific output? It does not appear so. Although published reports do not provide a direct answer, US scientific output, of which biological sciences account for about 60%, has been stationary as a whole since the 1990s (see Figure 2). More alarming is that a similar trend has been observed in the volume of cited US scientific literature, which flattened during the mid-1990s, with its share of cited world S&E literature falling from 52% in 1992 to 44% in 2001. This flattening in citation of US literature occurred across almost all fields. The reasons for this stagnation are unknown and are supposed to be addressed in NSF’s Science and Engineering Indicators 2006.

Most commentators suggest that the main competition for US science is likely to come from Asia. The 2004 NSB report tips China, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan as the new scientific vanguard. This assessment is based on their increases in global shares of scientific publishing, increasing numbers of young people taking scientific degrees, and their developing high technology production.

So, should we start packing our suitcases and scout the Internet for cheap flights to Beijing, Seoul, or Taipei? Probably not yet. Although US science faces challenges, its strong foundations alone seem to be good insurance for the future. Others are catching up, but increased competition will only do the country good. The NYT article may be too alarmist, but it is a good sign of public interest in the well-being of science. This is essential if US science is to continue to prosper.

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