To subscribe, send email to majordomo@itri.loyola.edu with text in BODY:
subscribe itrinewsbw
end

To cancel, do same with "unsubscribe itrinewsbw."

Click on this link to see the newsletters in color http://itri2.org/ITRInews/

R. D. Shelton, Editor:  rds@itri2.org
*== *== *== *==*== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *==*== *== *== *== *== *== *== *==*==

In This Issue of ITRInews
We're Almost No. 1 in Technology!
We're Almost Last in Technologists!
Feds Neglect Physical Science
IT Industry Lobbyist to Lead Technology Administration

Featured Organizations in International S&T:
Some Leading Universities and S&T Schools Around the World

*== *== *== *==*== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *==*== *== *==*== *== *==*==
We're Almost No. 1 in Technology! The top technology Leaders from the new UN Human Development Report 2001 start with No. 1 Finland and No. 2 the USA.  http://www.undp.org/hdro/   The ratings were based on number of patents granted, receipts from royalties, Internet hosts per capita, telephones, cell phones, electricity supply, education in science, mathematics and engineering.   The technology leaders are:
1.  Finland
2.  US
3.  Sweden
4.  Japan
5.  S. Korea
6.  Netherlands
7.  Britain
8.  Canada
9.  Australia
10. Singapore
11. Germany
12. Norway
13. Ireland
14. Belgium
15. New Zealand
16. Austria
17. France
18. Israel
The report also has some interesting data on the local concentrations of S&T like Silicon Valley and its imitators--some taken from a Wired magazine survey by Hillner in 2000.   I was interested in the success of some developing nations in building world class technology hubs: two in Brazil, and one each in South Africa, Tunisia, India, and Malasysia.  The most relevant section of the report is at http://www.undp.org/hdr2001/pr3.pdf

We're Almost Last in Technologists!  The 2001 edition of the OECD Education at a Glance (EAG) is now available and has some interesting data on the U.S position in S&T education.   http://www.oecd.org//els/education/ei/EAG/index.htm As summaried by Dita Smith in the Washington Post, the U.S. ranked 25th of the 26 OECD members in the proportion of unversity degrees that were in S&T.  http://www.oecd.int/education/ei/EAG/tables/C4.xls The EAG also summarizes the dismal picture of U.S. eighth grade students in the "TIMSS" international tests in math and science. The U.S. trails Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, England, Hungary, Japan, Korea and the Netherlands.  It is ahead of Italy and New Zealand.  http://www.oecd.int/els/education/ei/tables/F1.xls

How to resolve this paradox?  In my opinion we owe much of our technology leadership to the talented foreign grad students who come to the U.S.  Fortunately enough of them stay to make up for the relative lack of interest in S&T by Americans. Stan Williams of the HP nanotechnology lab points out that everyone over 45 in his lab was born in the USA, while no one under 45 was born here.   http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/depth/teched072201.htm
 
Feds Neglect Physical Science.  An upcoming Academy report, Trends in Federal Support of Research and Graduate Education, demonstrates that the Government's obsession with doubling the budget of the National Institutes of Health has resulted in sharp declines in funding and human resources in some other areas.  http://www.nap.edu/books/0309075890/html/  For example 12 of the 22 fields examined suffered a real loss of support by the mid 1990s.  In the last years of the Clinton Administration some real increases were made, but five fields still had lost over 20% of real funding compared to 1993: ChE, EE, ME, physics, and geological sciences.  Graduate enrollments were generally down in these areas, partly as a result of fewer research assistantships being available.  Perhaps this is one reason why Americans in these fields no longer lead the world in publications in leading journals. http://justice.loyola.edu/~rds/myth.pdf. Another new Academy report shows that the Bush FY2002 budget would result in even sharper declines in physical sciences.  Observations on the President's FY 2002 Federal Science and Technology Budget. http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10163.html?onpi_newsdoc07112001a  Thanks to Chris Brantley's e-letter Eye on Washington for these tips.

IT Industry Lobbyist to Lead Technology Administration The President intends to nominate Phillip Bond to be Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology.   He is currently the Director of Federal Public Policy for Hewlett-Packard Company and was formerly Senior Vice President for Government Affairs and Treasurer of the Information Technology Industry Council.  From 1993 to 1998, Bond served as Chief of Staff to Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn.  He was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs from 1992 to 1993 and Chief of Staff and Rule Committee Associate for Congressman Bob McEwen from 1990 to 1992.  From 1987 to 1990, he served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs.  He is a graduate of Linfield College in Oregon. [I scoured the Web for a photo, but drew a blank.]  http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/07/20010703-7.html

*== *== *== *==*== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *==
FEATURED ORGANIZATIONS THIS MONTH

The list below purports to be the leading universities and S&T schools around the world.  Several publications have found it to be profitable to their circulation to perform an annual analysis of which universities are strongest as measured by indicators like amount of sponsored research, student to faculty ratios, etc.  The conclusions are quite controversial: administrators at Harvard don't like the particular metrics used and their weighting that led them to rate merely number two below.  Some feel that magazines change the rating methods annually in order to make the results come out different each year, and thus make their stories newsworthy.  Indeed some of the sites allow you to apply your own weights to the metrics, to do your own rating from their data. The University of Illinois library has a nice survey of unversity ratings with a discussion of the methodologies that are used. http://www.library.uiuc.edu/edx/rankings.htm I found ratings for the USA, Canada, Asia, and the UK.  If you know of any others, I would appreciate a tip.

If you want a list of ALL the world's universities and engineering schools, Dr. Rene Osella of the National University of San Luis in Argentina has a global clearinghouse that is quite impressive.  It is mostly in Spanish, but what you need is in English.  http://www.galilei.com.ar/america/iamerica.html

USA
U.S. News and World Report rates U.S. universities relentlessly.http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/corank.htm The ratings are broken down regionally and down to the academic department level  Overall, their top half-dozen national universities (in order) are:

1.  Princeton University  http://www.princeton.edu/index.shtml
2.  Harvard University  http://www.college.harvard.edu/
3.  Yale University http://www.yale.edu/
4.  California Institute of Technology http://www.caltech.edu/
5.  Massachusetts Institute of Technology http://web.mit.edu/
6.  Stanford University http://www.stanford.edu/
 

In my field of electrical engineering, the top ten schools are:

1. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology  http://web.mit.edu/
2. University of California–Berkeley http://www.berkeley.edu
3. Stanford University  http://www.stanford.edu/
3. U. of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign http://www.uiuc.edu
5. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor http://www.umich.edu
6. California Institute of Technology http://www.caltech.edu/
7. Purdue Univ.–West Lafayette  http://www.purdue.edu
8. Georgia Institute of Technology http://www.gatech.edu
9. Carnegie Mellon University  http://www.cmu.edu
9. University of Texas–Austin http://www.utexas.edu 
 
Canada
Since 1967 the Gourman Report has rated American and Canadian universities. Numerical scores assigned to each university and program are derived from a comprehensive assessment of each program’s strengths and shortcomings. http://www3.telus.net/info/gourman-can.htm

The top three overall are:
1.   McGill University
2.   University of Toronto
3.   University of British Columbia

In contrast, the top three in Maclean's magazine annual study of comprehensive Canadian universities are:

1.  Simon Fraser
2.  Guelph
3.  Waterloo

Note the correlation--zero.

Asia

Asia Week (http://www.asiaweek.com) has had an annual rating of Asian universities, MBA schools, and S&T institutions for several years.   An example of their detailed ratings from 2000 is at http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/features/universities2000/scitech/1.html  They haven't learned the trick of changing the rules each year to make a fresh story; they say that they won't do a survey in 2001, because the results don't change that much in a year.  Asia Week's World Class Asian multidisciplinary universities include:

Kyoto University http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Tohoku University (Japan) http://www.tohoku.ac.jp
University of Hong Kong http://www.hku.hk
Seoul National University http://www.snu.ac.kr
National University of Singapore http://www.nus.edu.sg
Chinese University of Hong Kong http://www.cuhk.edu.hk
Hong Kong Univ. of Science and Technology http://www.ust.hk
Australian National University  http://www.anu.edu.au
University of Melbourne http://www.unimelb.edu.au
University of New South Wales http://www.unsw.edu.au

AsiaWeek rates the following Asian schools as  "World Class" in  S&T.

Korea Advanced Inst. of Science & Technology.  http://www.kaist.edu/index.html
Pohang Univ. of Science & Technology (South Korea) http://www.postech.ac.kr/e/
Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay http://www.iitb.ernet.in/
Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi http://www.iitd.ernet.in/
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras http://www.iitm.ac.in/ (this site was down last week)
 
Europe

The Guardian has a comprensive rating of UK universities similar to that of U.S. News and World Report.  It claims to also rate U.S., Canadian, and German institutions, but you'll have to be a better surfer than I to find that on their site.  http://education.guardian.co.uk/universityguide Their top five in the overall research category was:

1. Oxford http://www.ox.ac.uk/
2. Cambridge http://www.cam.ac.uk/
3. London School of Economics and Political Science http://www.lse.ac.uk
4. Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine  http://www.ic.ac.uk
5. University College London http://www.ucl.ac.uk/
 
The Times of London has similar ratings at http://www.times-archive.co.uk/news/pages/tim/2000/04/14/timguggug01002.html
 *== *== *== *==*== *== *== *== *== *== *== *== *==*== *== *== *== *== *== *== *==

Copyright © 2001 ITRI, Inc. Comments to rds@itri2.org please.
 

DATE	FEATURE ARTICLE	URL
Aug 98	Left Hand/Right Hand: NSF and NAS Both Assess US Math Research	http://itri.loyola.edu/NEWS/ITRInews1.htm
Sep 98	The Y1.998K Problem: Y2K Arrives 0.002K Early. Markets Crash, PMs Fired, Orioles 31 Games Behind	http://itri.loyola.edu/NEWS/ITRInews2.htm
Oct 98	Is S&T to Blame for the Asian Financial Crisis?	http://itri.loyola.edu/NEWS/ITRInews3.htm
Nov 98	NRC to State:  Ignoring S&T is Ignorant	http://itri.loyola.edu/NEWS/ITRInews4.htm
Dec 98/Jan 99	The Bottom Line: US Trade Deficit Skyrockets	http://itri.loyola.edu/NEWS/ITRInews5.htm
Feb 99	Who's the Bear, and Who's the Bull? Japan Doubles R&D; The US Cuts It	http://justice.loyola.edu/~rds/ITRInews6.html
Mar 99	Who's On First? (US, But Not for Long)	http://justice.loyola.edu/~rds/ITRInews7.html
Apr 99	GPRA Metastasizes Abroad	http://justice.loyola.edu/~rds/ITRInews8.html
May/Jun 99	Teraflops Computers Meet Gates' Law	http://justice.loyola.edu/~rds/ITRInews9.html
July 99	More Good News / Bad News from the Academy	http://justice.loyola.edu/~rds/ITRInews10.html
Aug 99	Rep. George Brown Adjourns	http://justice.loyola.edu/~rds/ITRInews11.html
Sep 99	200GB Disk: 40 Films on One CD	http://justice.loyola.edu/~rds/ITRInews12.html
Oct 99	Is International S&T Assessment Needed?	http://justice.loyola.edu/~rds/ITRInews13.html
Nov 99	Output in Papers: We're Number One?	http://justice.loyola.edu/~rds/ITRInews14.html
Dec 99 / Jan 00	New Technology Czar(ina)	http://justice.loyola.edu/~rds/ITRInews15.html
Feb 00	S&T: Ready for Prime Time?	http://justice.loyola.edu/~rds/ITRInews16.html
Mar 00	Bottom Line II: Trade Deficit Skyrocket Explodes	http://justice.loyola.edu/~rds/ITRInews17.html
Apr 00	Who's Getting U.S. Patents?	http://justice.loyola.edu/~rds/ITRInews18.html
May 00	Think That Government is Investing More in Research? Think Again.	http://justice.loyola.edu/~rds/ITRInews19.html
Jun 00	American Leadership of S&T: Reality or Myth?	http://justice.loyola.edu/~rds/ITRInews20.html
Jul 00	Science and Engineering Indicators 2000 Released by NSF	http://justice.loyola.edu/~rds/ITRInews21.html
Aug 00	Pale Green Manufacturing: US is 3rd out of 3	http://justice.loyola.edu/~rds/ITRInews22.html
Aug 00 (Extra)	Americans Like Being No. 1 and Want to Keep It That Way	http://itri2.org/ITRInews/ITRInews23.html
Sept 00	Industry Leads U.S. R&D	http://itri2.org/ITRInews/ITRInews24.html
Oct 00	Gingrich Praises Clinton	http://itri2.org/ITRInews/ITRInews25.html
Nov 00	Research Feasts: FY2001 Budgets	http://itri2.org/ITRInews/ITRInews26.html
Dec 00	S&T Policy of the Bush Administration	http://itri2.org/ITRInews/ITRInews27.html
Jan 01	Andreessen's Law for the Internet	http://itri2.org/ITRInews/ITRInews28.html
Feb 01	Sherwood Boehlert: New Science Committee Chair	http://itri2.org/ITRInews/ITRInews29.html
Mar 01	Research Famines: FY2002 Budgets	http://itri2.org/ITRInews/ITRInews30.html
Apr 01	As DotComs Wilt, Internet Sprouts	http://itri2.org/ITRInews/N31.html
May 01	R&D Budget Crash	http://itri2.org/ITRInews/N32.html
Jun 01	Nano is Huge, and Getting Bigger	http://itri2.org/ITRInews/N33.html
Jul 01	Marburger to be OSTP Director	http://itri2.org/ITRInews/N34.html
Aug 01	Doctors of Economic Warfare	http://itri2.org/ITRInews/N35.html
Sep 01	US Technologies Lead;  US Technologists Lag	http://itri2.org/ITRInews/N36.html