Make creativity part of study programs for scientists-in-training, experts urge

Science Daily  April 4, 2023 The rate of scientific innovation appears to be slowing down: despite immense investments, the proportion of individual projects that push science in new directions by breaking with previous understanding has decreased since the 1950s. Some observers have attributed these diminishing returns to the notion that fewer fundamental discoveries remain to be made. According to an international team of researchers (USA – NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Germany) a compelling case can be made for another factor: that the culture of science has gradually transitioned toward a more executive and results-oriented approach. In this fast-paced mode, […]

Political Interference: White House Launches Framework to Protect Scientific Integrity

Global Biodefense  January 13, 2023 The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released the Framework for Federal Scientific Integrity Policy and Practice.  It builds on the assessment of federal scientific integrity policies and practices described in the January 2022 report. The goal of the Framework is to assist agencies across the Federal Government as they take next steps together to strengthen, implement, and institutionalize scientific integrity policy, practice, and culture. It requires all agencies to designate a scientific integrity official, and agencies that fund, conduct, or oversee research to designate a chief science officer, and it establishes […]

UNESCO report calls for investments in science in the face of growing crises

Phys.org  June 11, 2021 Spending on science worldwide increased (+19 percent) between 2014 and 2018, as did the number of scientists (+13.7 percent). This trend has been further boosted by the COVID crisis, according to UNESCO’s new science report, UNESCO Science Report – The Race against Time for Smarter Development. But these figures hide significant disparities: Just two countries, the United States and China, account for nearly two-thirds of this increase (63 percent) while 4 out of 5 countries lag far behind, investing less than 1 percent of their GDP in scientific research. The scientific landscape thus remains largely a […]

South Korea becomes global leader in innovation

EurekAlert  May 27, 2020 This special report demonstrates how a concerted government push to make South Korea an innovation leader, backed by strong investment and systemic reform, has brought rapid and long-lasting results from South Korea’s spending on research and development as a percentage of its GDP is the second highest worldwide, being topped only by Israel. According to the Nature Index, South Korea has retained its position in the top 10 countries in terms of high-quality research output, as measured by the key metric “Share” over the past four years. Aside from the sustained investment in research and development, […]

Global Funding Forecast Predicts Growth of R&D Spending Worldwide

R&D Magazine  March 12, 2019 The Global R&D Funding Forecast is created based on proprietary reader surveys, current technology and economic reports and in-depth reporting. According to this year’s study, the global trend in R&D spending continues to grow worldwide, reflecting a surge to $240 billion in the Information & Technology sector. As in previous years, the growth in global R&D investments is being driven by spending in Asian countries, in particular China, which exceeds $500 billion in spending accounting for a 22 percent global share in investments. The United States will increase its R&D spending by $15.3 billion in […]

U.S. Army Research Lab’s Top 10 Coolest Science, Tech Advances from 2018

R&D Magazine  December 17, 2018 The lab’s chief scientist handpicked the “coolest” advances to showcase what Army scientists and engineers are doing to support the Soldier of the future with a “Top 10” list from 2018: Transporting quantum information with minimum distortions; Ultra-broadband super-sensitive atomic antenna; Brain-like computer solves super-complex problems; Peeking inside a gas turbine’s combustor with a strong X-ray; Cool coating stops attacks of sand; A super-hero nanocrystalline alloy; Extreme power for jumping robots; New explosive is more powerful than TNT and safer; Humans teach artificially intelligent agents; Taming the atom…read more.

Businesses Spent $375 Billion on R&D Performance in the United States in 2016

NSF News  September 25, 2018 Funding from the companies’ own sources was $318 billion in 2016, a 7.1% increase from 2015. Funding from other sources was $57 billion in 2016 and $59 billion in 2015. Data for this InfoBrief are from the Business R&D and Innovation Survey, developed and cosponsored by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics within the National Science Foundation and by the U.S. Census Bureau…read more.

AI could mean massive reskilling initiatives for the federal workforce

Fedscoop  September 11, 2018 According to Deloitte really focusing on a lot of the cognitive elements of how to get adoption up and get people to understand these technologies is going to be very important. The advent of AI, automation and machine learning has the potential to free up more than 1.1 billion hours of labor-intensive tasks that federal employees spend most of their time doing. But that will only happen more effectively if federal leaders can develop a strategy that will ultimately change the role of many employees and get them to buy into it… read more.

China unveils blueprint for huge underground ‘Higgs factory’

Physics World  September 6, 2018 Scientists in China have released details for a huge particle collider that will produce over a million Higgs bosons in a seven-year period. This report outlines the technical details of the accelerator. A second volume, featuring details of the CEPC detectors, is due to be released soon. The conceptual design report for the China Electron Positron Collider (CEPC) calls for a 100 km underground tunnel that would smash together electrons and positrons at energies of 240 GeV… read more.

The quantum technologies roadmap: a European community view

New Journal of Physics  August 1, 2018 In 2016 EU created a 150-page QT Roadmap . This article presents an updated summary of the roadmap. Software, protocols, and quantum information theory are essential for an optimal development of QT. Until now, most of the effort has focused on identifying the ultimate limits for quantum information processing. In the next 5–10 years, a parallel effort will be devoted to understanding what can be done with the first generations of small quantum processors, identifying for instance quantum computation protocols whose classical simulation is infeasible or realisation of protocols with unprecedented levels of security. […]