In 2013, ITIF found that America was no longer the lead nation in terms of funding university research—nowhere near it, in fact—despite having world-leading research universities that have been key to driving American technological supremacy since World War II.1 According to the latest data available at that time, the United States ranked 24th out of 39 nations in government funding of university research as a share of gross domestic product (GDP). Since then, according to data provided by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United States remained in 24th place out of 36 nations, with the nine governments investing more than double the U.S. level. In addition, in terms of change, U.S. funding as a share of GDP fell by 0.06 percentage points. The only nations in the sample with larger declines were Lithuania, Estonia, Singapore and Ireland.
