Outsourcing Is Climbing Skills Ladder

The Bush administration announced an initiative to increase spending on science education and research – to encourage more US students to take up the generally scorning the field. But the plan may be too late. Multinational companies – who always shop around for the best prices and the best talent – plan to move research and development jobs overseas, to countries with the fastest growing economies and superb education programs. In a survey of 200 multinational companies, nearly 40 percent report they plan to “change substantially” the geographic distribution of their research and development over the next three years. Most companies report plans to decrease research employment for the US and Europe. US universities have also long detected the trend, forced to rely on increasing numbers of foreign students to fill physics, chemistry and engineering programs. As a result, more universities scramble to plan offshore campuses and partnerships with foreign schools. The transfer of such research will not result in massive job loss, but will decrease the urge for innovation in the losing nations. As the chief technology officer for Dow Chemical says, “"There is no monopoly on brains, and none on education either." – YaleGlobal