Friday, January 19, 2007

The rise of Asian science research

Found a story on the BBC on a report published by the think-tank Demos on the rise of Asian science research, and the 'risk' to UK science research.

The acceleration of Indian, Chinese, and South Korean research is shifting dominance from the west (Europe and the US) to the east, with a number of factors contributing, for example the blossoming economies, increases in state spending and the return of academics who formally worked in the west. The report proposed a 'join them' approach, encouraging the fostering of close research links to enable collaborative work, instead of competition, which will be the only way of maintaining an important role on the world scientific stage. Of course, hand-in-hand with this must come a significant increase in government funding. If new cooperation schemes come about, it'll certainly be interesting. I imagine if you look at the scientific impact of nations in only a couple of years, it'll be a lot different to this...

And on a completely different, and irrelevant, note: the visitor numbers to this blog nearly doubled just last night - which I am attributing completely to a mention on Cognitive Daily (on Science Blogs), and on Mind Hacks. Thanks! :-)

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