International Benchmarking of U.S. Chemical Engineering Research Competitiveness This report highlights the main findings of a benchmarking exercise to rate the standing of U.S. chemical engineering relative to other regions or countries, key factors that influence U.S. performance in chemical engineering, and near- and longer-term projections of research leadership.
M
ore than a quarter of the jobs in the United States depend on chemistry in one way or another, and over $400 billion worth of products rely on innovations from this field. Chemical engineering, as an academic discipline and profession, has enabled the science of chemistry to achieve this level of significance. However, over the last 10-15 years, concerns have been raised about the identity and future of the U.S. chemical engineering enterprise, stemming from the globalization of the chemical industry; expansion of the field’s research scope as it interfaces with other disciplines; and narrowing of the field’s ability to address important scientific and technological questions covering the entire spectrum of products and processes—from the macroscopic to molecular level. At the request of the National Science Foundation, the National Research Council conducted an in-depth benchmarking analysis to gauge the current standing of the U.S. chemical engineering field in the world. The benchmark measures included: 1) the development of a Virtual World Congress comprised of the “best of the best” as identified by leading international experts in each subarea, 2) analysis of journals to uncover directions of research and relative levels of research activities, 3) analysis of citations to measure the quality of research and its impact, and 4) the quantitative analysis of trends in degrees conferred to and employment of chemical engineers, and some other measures including patent productivity and awards. The United States is presently, and is expected to remain, among the world’s leaders in all subareas of chemical engineering research, with clear leadership in several subareas. U.S. leadership in some classical and emerging subareas will be strongly challenged.
NOTE: Asia is comprised of China, Korea, Taiwan, and India. European Union includes 25 countries.
US A
35,000
A s ia (C hina, K orea, Taiw an, India) E uropean U nion
30,000 25,000
Number of Articles
Figure 1. Number of journal articles in chemical engineering from various geographic regions. Although the U.S. has more than any other single nation, the comparative percentage of U.S. articles has decreased substantially, due in part to a rapid rise in the number of articles from Asia.
20,000
Japan
15,000 10,000
C anada
5,000
S outh A m eric a
0 1980-84
1985-89
1990-94 1995-99
T im e Pe r io d
2000-06