Investment in R&D and innovation has always been, and still remains, a key requirement for the economic success of states. The developed countries learned this long ago, particularly the triad of the USA, Europe and Japan, which were for a long time leaders in the field. However, for several years now, the relative part played by these countries in global research and development has increasingly been challenged by a number of emerging countries, particularly in Asia. And though the economic crisis of recent years has been the occasion for many developed countries to reassert the essential role of investment in R&D and innovation in recovery strategies, it is not certain that this will actually enable those countries to reverse the latent trend that sees the 19th- and 20th-century pioneers losing their supremacy.
Pierre Papon shows here how global research potentials have evolved and which are the leading countries in this area. He also outlines the specializations of the main global actors in international scientific and technical production. He reminds us, in particular, of the slow (but manifest) erosion of European positions in global scientific competition, even if the quality of production remains intact, and stresses, in parallel with this, the rise of the emergent nations, with China and Brazil at their head. Where industrial research is concerned, the trend, according to Pierre Papon, runs in the same direction and it will perhaps be a USA-China-Japan triad that will take over leadership in the coming years. If, indeed, the fine slogans calling for an R&D-led recovery turn out to be as ineffective as the Lisbon strategy was stillborn, it is highly unlikely that the states of Europe will come out of this crisis unscathed in terms of their international scientific and technical positioning.
