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Safeguarding the Bioeconomy (2020) / Chapter Skim
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4 Areas of Leadership in the Global Economy
Pages 151-180

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From page 151...
... This chapter identifies metrics commonly used to determine strategic leadership positions in the global economy and provides an overview of those areas of the bioeconomy in which the United States currently maintains a leadership position. In particular, U.S.
From page 152...
... This observation is dramatically illustrated by the case of Great Britain's early leadership in the chemistry of aniline dyes, the impetus having been provided by the early discoveries of William Henry Perkin in the mid-1850s. Britain's leadership was subsequently eclipsed by the industrial scientific and technological leadership of the German chemical and dye industries in the 1860s and German leadership in biology, pharmaceuticals, and medicine in the subsequent decades of the 1870s and 1880s (Murmann, 2003)
From page 153...
... The following outline of the metrics for identifying strategic leadership positions in the global bioeconomy thus relies on a range of measures. Comparisons of Government Research and Development Expenditures on the Bioeconomy One valuable measure of scientific leadership in the bioeconomy would involve comparing time-series data on total government expenditures on research and development (R&D)
From page 154...
... , which includes bioengineering, biocatalysis, biosynthesis and biosensor technologies, biomedical and veterinary technologies, genomics and pharmacogenetics, and living cell technologies. SOURCE: OECD, Key Biotechnology Indicators, http://oe.cd/kbi, updated October 2018.
From page 155...
... Numerous sources, including Thompson Reuters Web of Knowledge, Elsevier's Scopus database, and Microsoft Academic, provide primary information on numbers of academic publications. Categorizing publications according to scientific fields is a challenge, but data agencies, including OECD and NSF, compile indicators using these primary data.
From page 156...
... The rise of Chinese biotechnology is documented in Figure 4-4, which reports annual biotechnology publications in the United States and China based on an analysis by Gryphon Scientific & Rhodium Group in its 2019 report China's Biotechnology Development. The data shown in Figure 4-4 document a substantial rise in biotechnology research output over the past decade, with acceleration beginning around 2011 across a number of regions.
From page 157...
... Comparisons of Scientific Training for the Bioeconomy A third important measure that can be used to compare global bioeconomy leadership is the training of scientific and technical personnel. As is true for both government investment and scientific output, there are limitations to the data on the bioeconomy workforce.
From page 158...
... , plus another 1,089 doctorate recipients in bioengineering and biomedical engineering.3 Data that track over time the number of recipients of doctoral degrees FIGURE 4-5  Doctoral graduates in biological and related sciences, 2016. SOURCE: The committee's calculations based on data extracted from https://stats.oecd.org (accessed July 2019)
From page 159...
... Figure 4-6 shows an increase in the number of doctoral degrees in the combined category of physical and biological sciences, mathematics, and statistics for selected countries in the years 2000, 2007, and 2014. These data exclude some degrees that apply to the bioeconomy, such as bioengineering, yet because the data include degrees in mathematics, statistics, and physical sciences, they likely include doctoral students beyond those trained for specific work in the bioeconomy.
From page 160...
... Given that doctoral trainees are the engine powering the advances in basic research at academic institutions, being able to supplement the United States' bioeconomy workforce with talented students from around the world is a benefit. Among the roughly 45,000 recipients of doctoral degrees within the United States, about 30–34 percent are students on temporary visas, the largest fraction of whom are of Chinese origin.
From page 161...
... visa holders 14,235 70.1 16,323 74.2 109,476 71.5 15 6 Americas 1,449 57.3 1,443 56.6 10,370 56.4 0 –1 Asia 9,568 74.5 10,659 80.0 73,431 76.4 11 7 China 3,988 82.1 5,564 83.2 34,458 81.9 40 1 India 2,165 84.6 1,974 88.6 15,335 85.8 –9 5 South Korea 1,445 60.0 1,126 68.5 9,173 62.4 –22 14 Europe 1,962 64.3 1,788 67.4 12,994 63.8 –9 5 France 125 64.8 107 69.2 790 63.7 –14 7 Germany 203 65.5 154 68.2 1,340 58.1 –24 4 Italy 137 60.6 161 70.8 1,069 64.8 18 17 Turkey 493 61.9 498 61.0 3,275 61.0 1 –1 Middle East 600 61.3 1,509 62.1 7,052 64.4 152 1 Iran 198 88.9 771 92.6 3,472 90.1 289 4 Saudi Arabia 49 14.3 340 10.3 996 11.9 594 –28 NOTE: Percentages based on all doctorate recipients on temporary visas who indicated where they intended to stay after graduation (United States versus foreign location) , not just those with definite commitments for employment or postdoctoral study.
From page 162...
... SOURCE: Science and Engineering Indicators 2018, National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2015 Survey of Earned Doctorates.
From page 163...
... While the United States maintains leadership in bioeconomy investments, questions arise about the nation's ability to maintain its historical leadership position across science and engineering sectors. Figures 4-7 and 4-8, respectively, report total national expenditures on R&D and the percentage of gross domestic product (GDP)
From page 164...
... SOURCES: National Science Foundation, Science and Engineering Indicators 2018, based on National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, National Patterns of R&D Resources (annual series) ; OECD, Main Science and Technology Indicators (2017/1)
From page 165...
... The data refer to patent families filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty within the Five IP Offices (which includes the European Patent Office [EPO] ; Japan Patent Office; Korean Intellectual Property Office; National Intellectual Property Administration, PRC; and U.S.
From page 166...
... Japan represents the next-highest fraction of patents at less than 15 percent of the overall total. South Korea and China experienced the greatest increase in the fraction of international biotechnology patents during 2001–2014, with South Korea increasing its fraction from 2 percent to 10 percent and China increasing its fraction from 1 percent to 5 percent.
From page 167...
... data include firms with five or more employees only. SOURCE: OECD, Key Biotechnology Indicators, http://oe.cd/ kbi; and OECD, Main Science and Technology Indicators Database, www.oecd.
From page 168...
... from World Intellectual Property Organization.
From page 169...
... More broadly, the extent of commitment by foreign countries to their overall innovation infrastructure and the increasing investments in biosciences by countries, particularly by countries with defined R&D strategies, such as China and South Korea, suggest that U.S. leadership in biosciences and bioeconomy innovation is unlikely to be maintained in the future at the same level as it has been in the recent past.
From page 170...
... . And although biotechnology ventures in China and South Korea have received substantial investment in the past few years, the data as of 2016 suggest that biotechnology ventures in China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan lag substantially behind those in the United States and Europe, having not reached $4 billion in financing in any year prior to or including 2016, the last year of the Ernst and Young (EY)
From page 171...
... Figure 4-17 reports counts of academic publications in synthetic biology published in journals indexed by Web of Science from 2000 to 2015, showing the worldwide total and the numbers for leading countries by author affiliation. During this period, the number of such publications grew annually from fewer than 200 to more than 1,000.
From page 172...
... NOTE: The line graph depicts worldwide annual publications. The bar chart depicts annual publications for the six leading countries by total publication output.
From page 173...
... (2017) synthetic biology search strategy.
From page 174...
... Department of Energy, these government-funded papers also receive the highest average number of citations per paper. The National Natural Science Foundation of China funds the third-largest number of synthetic biology papers, but as of 2018, those papers were receiving substantially fewer citations on average relative to those funded by the other agencies tracked by the coauthors.
From page 175...
... The data suggest, however, that other countries, particularly South Korea and China, are increasing their investments in science and innovation. As is true for other areas of science and innovation, the United States has historically attracted and to a great extent retained the best and the brightest scientific talent to attend its graduate schools, enroll in postdoctoral training, and serve as researchers and faculty.
From page 176...
... (2016) synthetic biology patent search strategy, N = 8,460 (7,847 with identified assignee country locations)
From page 177...
... FIGURE 4-21  Global locations of synthetic biology firms. SOURCE: Cumbers, 2019.
From page 178...
... Conclusion 4-1: The United States is a clear leader in the global landscape in multiple areas related to the bioeconomy, including federal funding for biological sciences; the production of science, innovation, and entrepreneurship in synthetic biology; and the gen eration and adoption of bioengineered crops. This leadership has been based to a substantial degree on the country's historical edge in science and the production of new-to-the-world knowledge.
From page 179...
... and other foreign engagement. https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/ US-China%20Biotech%20Report.pdf (accessed September 7, 2019)
From page 180...
... 2016. Building a patent search strategy for synthetic biology.


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