Asia turning world's brain centre

The boundaries to scientific and technological innovation are crumbling and the West can no longer rein in the geographical shift. First came the trend of corporates moving R&D centres to low-cost countries, now a more important shift in fundamental research to universities is taking place.
From a largely western hue, the doctorate workforce — which drives innovation — is changing colours. The US share in world PhDs is falling, and a large proportion of those trained in the US are actually foreign born — mostly Asian. In science and engineering (S&E) in ‘02, international students received 19.5% of all PhDs awarded in social and behavioural sciences; 18% in life sciences; 35.4% in physical sciences, and 58.7% in engineering. The share of foreign born students in master’s and bachelor’s degrees awarded in S&E in the US is also considerable. This points to the huge dependence of US industry on foreign scientists.
At the same time, the production of S&E professionals around the world — but specifically in developing countries like China and also to a lesser extent India — is rising. In 1975, from nil doctorates in science and engineering disciplines, China graduated 13,000 PhDs in 2003 — 70% of them in science and engineering. At this pace, China will produce more S&E doctorates than the US by ‘10; while the US share of world S&E PhDs will fall to about 15% by then, from 30% in the 1970s.
(Article from "The Economic Times")