This book is a summary and proceedings of a symposium sponsored by the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable and the National Science Foundation. It includes presentations by senior government science policy officials and leading scientists who are directly involved in the research and higher education policy formulation processes in various countries. Included are their assessments of current challenges to their national research systems, descriptions of national strategies for meeting these challenges, and a discussion of options for national research systems in the twenty-first century.

"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.

This report identifies major global trends in scientific research, describes the changes occurring within six industrialized countries in response to these trends, and discusses the challenges facing these countries in the future. At the symposium, historians of science and higher education traced developments and described current conditions of research systems in "new world" countries, represented by Japan, Russia, and the United States, and in the "old world," represented by Germany, France, and Great Britain. ISBN 0-309-04249-6: $15.00.

'The book is quite valuable, with its broad international coverage of state activities in the area of research and innovation support. It should also foster serious debates on the balance between public and private efforts in research and innovation.' - Mats Benner, Journal of Economic Literature '. . . this book provides the reader with a valuable summary of national public policy approaches to research and innovation at the end of the twentieth century and is a useful addition to the shelves of industrial policy experts.' - David Gray, Entrepreneurship and Innovation The book analyses the evolution of research and innovation policies in the world's leading countries. The last decade has witnessed a radical transformation of the landscape shaped after World War II, as described in the seminal collection edited by Richard Nelson in the early 1990s. Even though national systems have inherited different institutional arrangements and trajectories, analyses show three major converging trends in their public policies. There has been a retraction from support to large firms and programmes and a shift toward small to medium enterprises and the innovation infrastructure; the focus on public research and training capabilities is growing; and there has been a redesign of public intervention with the growing role of regions and states on one hand and multinational authorities on the other, particularly in the European Union.