China is about to overtake the US in scientific research, while Europe and France are far behind these two leaders. China produces an incredible amount of "brains", and laboratories of leading scientists receive colossal budgets. Although the PRC is a dictatorship, its model of technological development leaves ours far behind. In general, China is ahead of everyone else.
Ttlantico: What is the reason for China's rise in this area?
Laurent Alexander: China already has many publications, although there are fewer major works than the United States. In addition, there is still a small qualitative difference, which is not strange, since China has only recently announced itself. Back in 1980, he had almost nothing, except perhaps nuclear physics.
In this way, China was able to build a research and development capacity very quickly.
In quantitative terms, today it has practically reached the American level. At the moment, Chinese spending on scientific activities is approximately equal to the American one, and by 2020 they should leave them behind (total spending on scientific research in China is approaching 500 billion a year). Thus, quantitatively, China has made an incredible leap forward.
In terms of quality, it has also advanced very seriously, although it has not yet reached the American level.
China is regularly accused of copying other people's technologies, but everyone is guilty of this! Take Bill Gates and Steve Jobs: they both copied ideas that Douglas Engelbart introduced back in 1968. They did not have a single idea that did not follow from his work.
In research activities, everyone is engaged in espionage, trying to get other people's ideas and improve them. The scientist does not invent everything himself, but looks at the work of other specialists. And this is absolutely normal: if a specialist does not follow the publications in his field, he is a bad specialist.
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In other words, everyone copies each other and imitates each other. Including China. Only today he is developing truly original technologies. That is why, after phones that were designed in California and made in China, we now see smartphones and computers completely released in the country.
That is, after catching up with imitation, the time has come for real innovation. So, last year, China became the first country to carry out embryo modification. There are many industries in which China is bringing innovation (artificial intelligence, internet payments, smartphone apps …).
- It follows from the Digital Economy and Society Index released in May this year that the EU countries have hardly improved their indicators in the number of diplomas in science, new technologies, engineering and mathematics. At the same time, Europe endlessly repeats that it strives to become the leaders in the field of artificial intelligence and big data. Apparently, she still has a long way to go for this. What is the reason for this lag? Can we talk about European depression?
- Yes, there really is such a depression. It is worth noting that research is practically not carried out in Southern Europe: South Korea allocates 5% of national wealth to them, and Spain and Italy - about 1%, while in France it is about 2.2%.
Europe invests too little in this industry and trains too few engineers, the best of whom, moreover, go abroad. As the head of the National Center for Scientific Research recently told Figaro, in France, a high-level specialist receives no more than 3,100 euros per month, while an enterprise like Google is ready to offer him 20-30 times more on the fly.
Thus, we pay too little to our scientists and university professors. A top-level teacher completing a career in France earns about 6,200 euros per month. Moreover, in Switzerland, at the University of Lausanne, in the same position, a specialist receives 303,000 euros per year.
Since the EU does not pay enough scientists and educators, we are witnessing a brain drain, even though the number of high-level specialists is not too large.
At the same time, China is producing an incredible amount of "brains", and laboratories of leading scientists receive colossal budgets. Although the PRC is a dictatorship, its model of technological development leaves ours far behind. In general, China is ahead of everyone else. So, in 1980, its wealth per capita rate was five times lower than in Morocco. Today Morocco has not budged, and China has become the second world power. Thus, in the knowledge economy, there is indeed a rapid redistribution of maps, and the level of Europe is only falling. In the field of innovation, artificial intelligence and computer science, things are bad in Europe. There is not a single significant European enterprise in the digital sphere. We are undoubtedly lagging behind, especially since there is no real desire to catch up with the American giants. Anyway,this would require astronomical budgets and the mobilization of the entire EU, which is difficult to imagine today.
Thus, Europe is now not at all on the path of catching up.
- What about France? We are ranked 18th out of 28 in the Digital Economy and Society Index …
- We in France allowed university research to fail. We have accepted a decline in the level of research activities of universities as well as specialized centers.
When you go to the countries that are leading in scientific activity, you look at their universities and compare them with ours, you feel ashamed. Shame for salaries, allocated funds, insecurity of people working in this area …
It takes a lot more investment to raise the bar. Take the example of South Korea, which invests twice as much in scientific activities: laboratories there are better equipped, professors are paid more … As a result, they and Taiwan produce the best microprocessors in the world today, while we are very bad at computer science.
Asia is emerging as a leader in the knowledge industry, while Europe has failed to adapt to this highly competitive industry that is actively developing where big money is invested in science, research and technology.
- At the end of 2017, an investment of 57 billion euros was announced over five years to help the economy transition to a new growth model. Do you welcome such investments?
- These budgets already existed, and the numbers were announced just for the sake of good news. They simply folded several existing budgets into one and presented everything in a press release. This has been happening for 40 years, but in fact no new funds are allocated for science.
The share of the EU budget allocated to science is not growing and does not in any way come close to world leaders, that is, to Asia and the United States. As always, we are dealing with PR. But this is the politics of the past. The real future policy in this area could be to increase spending and implement research strategies, which we see in China and Korea. In no case should this disastrous political PR be maintained, because people begin to believe that we are on the right path, although this is not so.
Laurent Alexandre
