international

As the rate of foreign students earning doctorates from American universities increases — from 17 percent of the total science, engineering, and health doctoral degrees in the 1960s to nearly 40 percent in 2010 — the question is where do these foreign nationals seek work? Do they remain in the United States post-graduation or do they return to their country of origin or do they go elsewhere?

The U.S. economy is poised to create up to five million new manufacturing jobs by 2020 due to increasing demand for U.S. exports, according to new research from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Since 2006, U.S. exports have risen by 30 percent — far outpacing the growth in gross domestic product (GDP). BCG senior partner, Harold L. Sirkin, projects that the demand for U.S. exports will continue to grow, leading to an American Manufacturing renaissance between 2015 and 2020. This positive news contradicts prevailing attitudes about the declining competitiveness of the U.S. manufacturing sector, especially in comparison to China.

As U.S. politicians turn their eyes towards this year's election season, governments around the world continue to focus their efforts on increasing national global competitiveness. Over the past couple months, Australia, China and New Zealand have announced government initiatives to spur innovation, revitalize domestic manufacturing and support R&D.

In 2011, European startups and other projects raised approximately €1.5 billion ($1.8 billion) through crowdfunding, according to a report from Nesta, an innovation focused foundation located in the United Kingdom. In The Venture Crowd, Nesta researchers found that a significant portion of those funds raised were by reward-based crowdfunding, where participants receive non-financial rewards in exchange for donating to a project. However, other crowdfunding models are growing rapidly including donation crowdfunding, crowdfunded lending and equity crowdfunding.

Although the economic ramifications of the recent global recession still remain, countries across the world have remained committed to supporting their innovation economies. Several initiatives across the globe highlight these efforts including the European Union (EU) announcing that it will commit significant funding to three innovation-focused programs and an economic development strategy in British Columbia, Canada, to support the province's technology sector and spur job creation. A recent report also found that a positive link exists between economic development, technology transfer, increased rates of innovation and the strengthening of IPRs in both developed and developing countries.

Governments of advanced economies are starting to believe as the 21st century advances significant opportunities for their technology-based product and service sectors will emerge from increasingly open, competitive and affluent global markets. To compete in this changing world, they are looking to expand access to capital for startups and entrepreneurs, support their research and development (R&D) infrastructure and address weaknesses in their national economies. Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU) are among those that recently have announced initiatives or released reports intended to strength their national innovation economy.

The European Union (EU) launched the Technology Transfer Offices — Connecting Innovation and Research Centers and Laboratories in Europe (European TTO CIRCLE ), a network of tech transfer offices at Europe's 25 largest public research organizations. With the goal of increasing the market and societal impacts of publicly-funded research, the European TTO CIRCLE members already have adopted a set of several initiatives including:

Innovation quickly is becoming the key phrase for the world’s economies. Increasingly nations are turning their economic development efforts towards building 21^st century economies that are cleaner, more efficient and built on collaboration, both domestically and internationally. The European Union, New Zealand, South Korea and the United Kingdom have announced new initiatives that target increasing their overall competiveness not simply in the short-term, but long-term. 

Talented human capital is singled out as the most critical resource differentiating the prosperity of countries and companies in the manufacturing sector, according to a new report from the World Economic Forum. Even as unemployment remains high across the globe, an average 10 million jobs cannot be filled because of a growing skills gap. Experts say the problem is likely to worsen as more skilled workers retire. The report highlights key trends that will define manufacturing competition over the next 20 years.

With a new approach to supporting innovation by pursing business-led initiatives focused on better meeting private sector needs, Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty presented Canada’s Economic Action Plan 2012, providing $1.1 billion CAD ($1.1 billion USD) over five years for direct R&D support. The budget also includes $500 million CAD ($502 million USD) to increase private sector investments in early stage risk capital and support the creation of large-scale venture capital funds led by the private sector.