Why is American innovation leadership at risk?

"A recently released report shows the United States is in danger of losing its global lead in science and innovation for the first time since World War II. The report was prepared by the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, a coalition of leaders from industry, science, and higher education. Although the United States is still out front of the world’s innovation curve, competing countries are climbing the technology ladder quickly, and the only way the United States can continue to create high-wage, value-added jobs is to climb the innovation ladder faster than the rest of the world. The task force identified dwindling federal investment in science and research as a root cause of the problem. Federal research as a share of GDP has declined 40 percent over the past 40 years. The U.S. share of worldwide high-tech exports has been in a 10-year decline since 2008, after a dramatic rise from $77 billion in 1990 to $221 billion in 2008. The latest data has the U.S. high-tech exports at $153 billion. Similarly, graduate science and engineering enrollment is declining in the United States while on the rise in China, India, and elsewhere. In addition, retirements from science and engineering jobs here at home could lead to a critical shortage of U.S. talent in these fields in the near future. So what needs to be done to reverse this alarming trend? More robust investment is part of the solution because federally funded, peer-reviewed, and patented scientific advances are essential to innovation. Such basic research helped bring us lasers, the World Wide Web, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and fiber optics. National Association of Manufacturers President Jay Timmons noted that, “Modern manufacturing offers high-paying, long-term careers. It’s a high-tech, sleek industry. It’s time to close the skills gap and develop the next generation of the manufacturing workforce.”"