Global Research and Development Expenditures: Fact Sheet, John F. Sargent Jr., Specialist in Science and Technology Policy. June 16, 2017.
“The United States emerged as a global leader in science and technology in the second half of the 20th century. During this period, U.S. public and private investments in R&D grew rapidly and helped to propel the United States to a position of global economic leadership. By 1960, the United States accounted for approximately 69% of the world’s R&D funding. By 2015, however, the U.S. share of global R&D expenditures had fallen to about 29%. The U.S. decline in share of global R&D resulted not from a reduction in U.S. R&D investments—in fact, U.S. public and private R&D grew robustly during this period—but rather from even greater increases in the investments of the governments and industries of other countries, which recognized the importance of R&D to their industrial innovation and competitiveness.”