A first-of-its-kind study shows that cuts in federal funding for science might hinder the economy by halting innovation. The study, recently published in Science, examines how patented inventions rely on federally-funded science. Nearly a third of all the patents in the US rely on federal research—a percentage that has grown substantially over the past 90 years. This trend applies across all fields—at its most extreme, almost 60% of the patents in chemistry and metallurgy rely on federally-funded science.
Read the Science article here.