We are living in a connected, digital world where there are plenty of emerging powers in Science and Technology. India, China, and even the Middle East are performing much better in research than what they did a decade or two ago. Many countries have invested heavily in Science and Technology while in the US, the funding has stagnated in the recent years. But still, the US, UK, Germany, France and Japan still account for a major portion of the research going on in the cutting-edge fields of engineering that are shaping the future. Disciplines like nanotechnology, robotics, and 3-D printing are clearly the front-runners when it comes to shaping the world of tomorrow, and here the bigwigs of research are also leading by a landslide. Here is how they are doing in these fields:
Most Innovative Countries By Region
Top 10 Most Innovative Countries In The World
Thanks to heavy investment from companies like Toyota, Honda, 3-D Systems and Stratasys, US and Japan continue to lead in all these disciplines. When combined with Germany, South Korea, and the United Kingdom both countries make up more than three-quarters of all the research done in this trio of futuristic technologies. This elite group of nations is way ahead of the rest of the pack and that’s why their dominance is still rooted firmly in the scientific playing field. Only China and its enormous pool of human resource have been able to find its way into the top research-oriented countries with 25 percent of patents in 3-D printing and 15 percent in nanotechnology coming from the emerging superpower.
It is also important to see the role played by big corporations in the propagation of the research culture. New studies are costly and in many cases only the governments and these kinds of money-spinning entities have the financial muscle to sustain them. Here again, the companies based in these countries are leading with Japan alone responsible for an astonishing 80 percent of the total number of patents filed in the field. Way to go Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Denso, Hitachi, Panasonic, Yaskawa and Sony! I guess they fully realize that historically, the sustained economic growth is directly linked to the technological breakthroughs that society has been able to achieve. The US is heavily leading in 3-D printing and other biotechnological fields as well. Here is a complete breakdown infographic timeline from the World Intellectual Property Organization:
Once they have a monopoly in these fields, these organizations can ask a unilateral sum of money in return for their services because it’s their intellectual property now.
