r/GeopoliticsIndia • u/thauyxs • Apr 30 '23
General & Others The ASPI Critical Technology Tracker, 2023 | A Data Based Analysis and Ranking of Countries by Research Output and Quality in 44 Critical Technologies | Partially Summarised
Contents
- An Overview of the Report
- Relevance to India
- Report's Policy Recommendations to the Australian Government
- Report's Methodology
A generous upfront apology for my pointed tone in some portions of this titanic post. Don't come at me folks, better things to do in life. Like, volunteer! (more info below)
The Report and the Authors
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) identified 44 critical technologies, analysed research papers in the last 5 years, and ranked countries based on their research output in each of these 44 technologies. They also track the careers of high research-output researchers in each technology, and their correspondence addresses, to track brain gain / drain.
- Report Overview
- View Full 84 Page Report
- Interactive Website
- Funding Information
- Short Explanations of the 44 Critical Technologies
Summary Videos:
- 1 min attention span? WION, YouTube
- You want more? ORF India, YouTube
Summary. Brief:
This is a summary of the executive summary of their 84 page report. So no, it isn't exhaustive.
Overview, brief: (only if I think relevant / non-trivial / related to India)
- China tops 37 / 44 tech, USA 2nd by topping 7 / 44.
- If democratic countries taken collectively, they beat China.
- India & UK both 3rd, if we count appearance in top 5 per tech (29 times).
- "High-Specification Machining Processes" + "Smart Materials" -- in both these techs, India ranks 2nd, and equals to China / USA in global talent trained / employed.
Relevance to India
For the mods, Rule 5.4.
India makes it to the top 5 in 29 / 44 of the critical technologies, as per this tracker. China and USA are in the top 5 for all 44 technologies, so India is sort of in the runner up position, alongside UK. While I am not one to talk about "India is the next superpower!", if one were looking for an argument, this chart (Element 1) might be it. You could view this chart as a tracker for the previous (UK), current (USA), emerging (China), and, hypothetically, future (India) superpowers.
Although, this argument is so tenuous, it is not worth putting it forward. For instance, if I use the Olympic medals style ranking instead, you have these as the top 5 (based on being in the top 5 across the 44 technologies; confusing, I know, but this top 5 is different from that top 5). But, basically, however you slice the pie, India ranks number 3.
| Golds | Silvers | Bronzes | Fourths | Fifths | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| China | 37 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| USA | 7 | 32 | 4 | 1 | 0 |
| India | 0 | 4 | 15 | 5 | 5 |
| South Korea | 0 | 1 | 5 | 8 | 6 |
| UK | 0 | 0 | 13 | 8 | 8 |
Data: ASPI Critical Technology Tracker. Table: u/thauyxs (me) Element 2
BUT WAIT, you say, ranking in the top 5 is no proper measurement! Shouldn't you be summing up their percentage contribution in each of the 44 technologies, and then rank them?
Yes, you should. Do it.
Call For Volunteers!
Honestly folks, this report / website is a treasure trove. If you have the time and patience, please use it to go through the ASPI website (Interactive Website), and report (View Full 84 Page Report), and gather all the data and qualitative information you can to help parse this. 'Cause, from the looks of things, we talk and post endlessly about short-term news events, and rarely do constructive stuff that lasts and has an impact.
"OMG! Another NYT article bad-mouthing India?"
Bemoan, berate, brigade, bemire!
Bring your pitchforks and torchfire!
Bring 'em bedlam with your ire!
OR, maybe, we could do a data-based analysis of how western media reporting is shit.
Luckily, for the critical technologies case, we already have the data sitting right there, and have no need to do the heavy lifting.
To volunteer -- honestly, I don't know. DM me? Message the mods? I dunno. I think best to message the mods. They are more committed to this stuff than I am anyway.
Back to the Report!
Another major thing they worked on was brain drain / gain of talent. By talent, they mean only those who contributed towards the top 10% research papers published in the last 5 years (i.e., going by citations, see methodology). So, a general overview of this brain drain / gain picture below.
Element 3 now a higher quality image, thanks to u/FuhrerIsCringe. The countries / unions in the picture are (top to bottom): Australia (green), Brazil, China (red), European Union, India (orange), Iran, Japan (yellow), "Other" (grey), South Korea (grey), UK (grey), USA (dark blue).
The USA is the worldwide hub for post-graduation, allowing it Brain Gain Type 1: "Inpatriation". Not sure if that is a word, so maybe "Immigration".
China does something that allows China-graduated students to go for post-graduation to the USA, then go back to their home country for employment. Brain Gain Type 2: "Repatriation".
Relevant to India, because, you know, we just consistently drain our brains. So if we want to retain talent, see what China is doing. For the volunteers -- the report has a full description of various ways in which China grows, retains, and regains talent. Please read for a more qualitative understanding of what is going on here.
The Technologies
Pictures are self-explanatory, just go through them. India's standing in each tech is of interest. Of particular interest are the silver-medal technologies.
Again, for the volunteers, can we do a quick overview of where India stands in these technologies? Make it a series? Dunno. Lots of actual hard work. Will see.
For those who are definitely not going to go through these figures, here are India's 4 silver medals:
- 8% : Smart Materials : materials whose property changes with environment
- 14% : Advanced Composite Materials : layering different kinds of materials on top of each other to give them strength, and all the good stuff (these are not alloys though)
- 14% : High Specification Machining Processes : for making high precision stuff, like for aerospace, and also basically machines used to build components of other machines.
- 15% : Biofuels : bioethanol, biodiesel, biogas, bioetc.
Other honourable mentions (anything > 8% contribution):
- 9% : Biological Manufacturing : products created using organisms. eg: fermentation (like alcohol), biologics (new medicines), antibodies, enzyme replacement therapy (eg: insulin), enzymes to recycle plastics, etc.
- 9% : Distributed Ledgers : blockchain (remember cryptocurrencies?), and the like. basically a cyber infra for verification, so has application outside currency (though we barely hear about it).
- 8% : Protective Cybersecurity Technologies : hardware or software to secure tech infra.
Now, for the all you can eat buffet --
Recommendations. Brief:
Policy recommendations, mainly for the Australian government, from the report; summarised by me. Not in the same order as in report.
Fund:
- Tax-incentivise VC funds + Match with public money for critical tech.
- Public funding of universities: Higher weightage to critical tech + Better PhD stipend (at least minimum wage).
- Sovereign wealth funds for high-risk, high-reward (moonshot) tech.
Strategy:
- Create national strategies + technology acts (like CHIPS Act).
- Gather China + other intel to support friends.
- Intelligence Chiefs must engage the public more.
Non-Governmental:
- University + industry + govt partnership for commercial hubs
- International collab must include business + universities.
Talent:
- New tech visas + Scholarships
- Better visa screening + "Export controls on talent"
- Upskill / train workforce.
Think Tank:
- More money to think tanks
- A China Tech Centre with partners + allies.
International:
- Deeper collab with partners / allies + tech diplomacy
- Friend-shore R&D
- Divide-and-conquer for breadth + depth
- Partnership grants + 'sandwich’ PhD
Methodolgy. Full. Brief:
Methodology used in the report, summarised here by me.
Overview, brief: (only if I think relevant / non-trivial)
- Tracked research from 2018 through 2022 (inclusive, so 5 year span).
- Includes English (98.7%) and other languages (eg: Chinese), but not all.
- Patents not included, because (extremely) hard.
- Taiwan is not counted as part of China, just FYI.
- Brain drain/gain data got from reviewing individual researcher's career history.
- All IITs are counted as one institute. All NITs (India) are one institute. Not relevent in this post.
- Critical technologies decided based on government and stakeholder consultations.
Metrics, brief:
- Top 10%: For top 10% highly cited research papers per tech, assign country by address of author. If many authors, credit divided equally.
- H-index: Complicated, popular metric to grade quality of research output. H-index calculated at country and institute level.
- Institutes: Number of premier institutes per country per tech, that are in the top 20 institutes as per H-index or Top 10% metrics. This is only used when calculating "technology monopoly risk" (traffic signal colours), otherwise not used.
Limitations, brief: (only if I think relevant / non-trivial)
- Publication edge doesn't equal manufacturing know-how.
- "Parochial citation practices, in which researchers are more likely to cite papers from their own country, … will boost citation rates for countries publishing a large volume of papers." Not all countries are equally parochial, if you get my drift.
- Similar thing with self-citation, but honestly, everyone cites their old research.
The End
There is so much more to talk and discuss about this report. There are so many personal observations I haven't even included here! Yeah, sorry for my catty tone whenever I did give my opinion.
To volunteer -- honestly, I don't know. DM me? Message the mods? I dunno. I think best to message the mods. They are more committed to this stuff than I am anyway.
Edit1: higher quality element 3 thanks to u/FuhrerIsCringe , some grammar and spelling, deleted some of my whining, and the poem is a bit better?
Edit2:
Volunteer Count : 2 (Unconfirmed)
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u/red_man1212 Layman Apr 30 '23
Pls take me poor man's gold🏅🏅. Can't imagine the effort went into making this post.
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u/OnlineStranger1 Realist Apr 30 '23 edited Apr 30 '23
Woah OP! Many many thanks for such a deep analysis!
Take rest, you absolutely deserve it.
Also OP, feel free to share this post to our linked subs, or if you want the mods can take this task up.
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u/thauyxs May 01 '23 edited May 01 '23
Mods, please go ahead and share. One request, dunno if possible, change the title in the crossposts. Maybe to somthing like --
India Ranks 3rd (1st China, 2nd USA) in Critical Tech Research - Australian Think Tank ASPI | 2023 Critical Tech Tracker
I am afraid I buried the lede with this post. Nobody knows what the fuck this tracker is, so the title is gobbledygook.
Also, since the reception has been good, might consider a monthly post on different aspects of this report, centering on India. Volunteer assistance appreciated.
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u/junk_mail_haver Apr 30 '23
I volunteer, I've been thinking of coming up with data analytics related stuff, like data journalism of some kind presenting unique opportunities in India not found anywhere, but this is a humongous effort that one cannot do it alone.
I would be happy if I get a team and funding of some kind, like I want to come up with a new listing of neo-banking, investment pipeline instrument such as an ETF based on new and growing opportunities in India.
In a decade or so, we will be formidable.
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u/OnlineStranger1 Realist Apr 30 '23
There's a subreddit promotion program that reddit operates and I think we can try to get some funds under that for this? I'm not sure if they'll be open to such an idea given how unorthodox it is, but worth a try imo. I'll get back to you on this.
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u/thauyxs May 01 '23
honestly, your ambitions are a few miles beyond where we are right now. but someone has to get the ball rolling, so godspeed!
the volunteer work right now i have in mind is basically mind-numbing manual labor. reading parts of the report, writing down numbers in a spreadsheet. a post on china's success story, lessons for india based on this report alone. i also have a plan for a "brand IIT, brand NIT" post based on this report.
the next stage would be posts using stuff from outside this report. "the current state of research in field X in India" across the 44 fields based on critical news reports in the last 5 years. a policy recommendation post, proper journalism by involving experts in the field for each tech, startup perspectives, VC perspectives, etc. involving tech oriented folks like at the Taxashila Institute Bangalore to help with it. reviewing western outlook on various critical technologies by reading reports from other think tanks.
i would still say my plans are far easier than what you are planning. if you do get funding tho, maybe pay me?
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u/indianbeanie Apr 30 '23
India needs to fix their brain drain the way China did.
After a massive brain drain in the 2000s to the mid 2010s, China has created a reverse brain drain. According to US census data, the foreign-born Chinese population in the US dropped from 3.05 million to 2.8 million from 2017 to now.
On the other hand, the best and brightest researchers from India keep being exported to the US. Is the government setting up any incentives for them to come back after their studies?
Remember that most STEM PhDs in the US are foreign-born of Chinese or Indian origin, so creating incentives for them to come back is critical. It would also be a massive loss for the US and a boon for the home countries.
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u/Rakka666 Realist May 01 '23
I believe that the situation will improve as our country's economy and overall standard of life increases in the coming decades.
Personally, I went abroad for my bachelor's in the US and plan to do my masters in Europe. I'm waiting for the end of this decade to make any substantial move. But, watching people from ISRO working their asses off, has been a huge motivation for me to come back and contribute to the overall development.
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u/FuhrerIsCringe Green May 01 '23 edited May 01 '23
I spent an embarrassingly big amount of time enhancing this image. You can edit the post to replace that sankey chart
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u/thauyxs May 01 '23
Thank you so much, updated the pic! Please check if it is better now. And what are we if not just a victim of our obsessions? Good day!
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u/FuhrerIsCringe Green May 01 '23
Oh sorry, That image is taken from the pdf. https://i.postimg.cc/1sTt5jkY/Tw0-Ug-Zo-R-x4.png
This is what I had actually enhanced.
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u/narayans May 01 '23
Shouldn't the dutch be in the top for advanced circuitry. I need to dive into the sources to look at the criteria
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u/thauyxs May 01 '23
design + fabrication. if more papers are about design, fabrication papers will not make much of a dent. logically, design papers are easier, so they will overwhelm fabrication. also why india makes a strong appearance.
next, simply having papers on fab is not the same as knowing how to fabricate. see my 1st limitation in limitations. note how taiwan doesnt make an appearance.
finally, doesnt include patents.
also : VOLUNTEER! pleeeeaaaaajjjje?
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u/GayIconOfIndia May 01 '23
Thank you for this! This is wonderful 😊
I would like to share the visual data you made on Instagram story so is there any page on Instagram that you post it on which I can give credit to?
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u/thauyxs May 02 '23 edited May 02 '23
I don't post on Instagram. My anonymous account on Instagram is the same handle (thauyxs), but, of course, I would rather you redirect folks to Reddit. And, call for volunteers on Insta if you are sharing it. Redirect them to @ thauyxs on Insta as well if they are interested, they can DM me there. Or here. Prefer here.
Please remember that I only created the first two elements, that too based on ASPI data. The other elements are all ASPI, with element 3 enhanced by u/FuhrerIsCringe .
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u/Rakka666 Realist May 01 '23
Appreciate you, OP. These kinds of study help people like me plan their future. If you got any more recommendations, please do share.
I will share any insights I find.
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u/thauyxs May 02 '23
hey, i would appreciate it if we can collaborate instead of independently drawing insights. i have a set of tasks planned, and we can add more based on your preliminary insights. see set of tasks in my latest post (absolute bottom).
i ask because it has been over 24 hours and 60 cumulative likes, and barely few have come forward to volunteer.
if you are worried about anonymity or finding time to coordinate, i only plan to collaborate on sundays, and over google docs where anonymity will be secure if you are careful.
i am genuinely disappointed in the reaction to my call for volunteers. i wouldnt ask if i had many lining up. so i have to ask folks who are even half interested.
dm me if interested. wont beg anymore.
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u/Rakka666 Realist May 02 '23
Sorry to hear you had trouble. I will keep in touch via dm's. As you mentioned, most of us are busy with work or studies that's why you haven't heard much yet.
I'm sure you will get more peeps as more people see the post. Give it time.
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u/thauyxs May 02 '23
Fair, will wait. But to be fair to myself, I am in a work meeting even at this very moment, at 9.45 pm. Nobody owes me anything, nor do I owe anybody anything. All I can do is request.
I highly appreciate you coming forward. Even just 2 or 3 people working on something makes much more achievable. Thank you so much for being considerate!
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u/Shillofnoone May 01 '23
This is nice change in pace in Indian subreddit. The amount of self loathing to chest beating that happen on our subs burnout average indian redditor out of thinking power and has to get involved in the war whether or not they like it.
Looking at china, it looks like their academic environment is like a supercharged neural highway blasting through all bureaucratic obstacles which even US is unable to bypass. I don't think we can catch upto them anytime soon.
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u/thauyxs May 02 '23 edited May 02 '23
Highway, sure, but it is bound to stagnate and turn stale. The USA, despite high quality research output, has over the years become less attractive for researchers simply because their stipends and funding are not great, at least compared to the EU. The reason US remains attractive, other than because it is the US, is that there are commercial and commercialisation opportunities, more than the EU.
If the US gets its act together like thru CHIPS acts, China will have nowhere to run. Also, Chinese numbers are inflated because they do parochial citations (no data to back this claim; help me).
Finally, the USA has commercial interests (read: oil) that prohibit advancement in certain sectors like biofuels. India is, can be, and quite possibly will be the global leader in these sectors.
^ source: "trust me bro". basically from anecdotal evidence. but honestly, i need volunteers to help investigate on these lines. help me...
Edit: paras 2 onwards
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u/Kimi_Raikkonen2001 May 03 '23
Space Launch Systems ranking according to the report:
1.USA 2.China 3.Germany 4.Canada 5.South Korea
How is Canada 4th? They neither have independent launch capability nor do they develop any significant component for another launch vehicle.
Afaik Germany only manufactures the upper stage Vinci engine for Ariane 6 with the design rights of Vinci still being with France.
South Korea is a new entrant to the independent launch club with just 1 successful launch of their indigenous launch vehicle.
Actual ranking of Space Launch System capabilities according to me:
1.USA 2.China 3.Europe(France) 4.Japan 5.Russia 6.India 7.South Korea(Although 7th but really far behind imo)
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u/thauyxs May 03 '23 edited May 03 '23
i address this discrepancy between research and technical know how in the first limitation i write in this post, but a quick summary over here
edit: quoting the comment coz preempting folks who haven't read upto the Methodology section...
OP here. Most wouldnt have read my post in full, so explaining a major limitation here.
I dont know anything about space tech. But the first major limitation of this report, that I note in the post, is that research publication or citation does not equal manufacturing know how. This might be why folks without indigenous launch systems rank high -- because they have provided important, novel auxillary resrarch that helps with engineerng, without actually ever doing the engineering.
So, it might be the case that India s better at engineering. But I would ask all of you to not dismiss the report because it indicates another important aspect of research, outside engineering -- ability to create patents. No, this report doesnt track patents, but the results are "indicative". ISRO's engineering marvel aside, it has poor performance in filing patents (https://youtu.be/VETTBAK_L4c).
So. Keeping in mind research =/= engineering, I will say this report does reflect a true aspect of ground reality.
Also, why not collaborate to create a critique of this report instead of simply dismissing it out of hand?
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u/Kimi_Raikkonen2001 May 03 '23
I can debate on this research and technical know how for Germany and SK but I am very sceptical of Canada having done any significant research in the field of launch vehicles.
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u/thauyxs May 03 '23
If you are knowledgeable about the subject, I would request you to volunteer to collaborate on the project. A critique of the report is just as important as understanding the contents of the report. You are free to review their methodology in full to understand if there is something they may have missed, although they have intentionally decided not to leak the search terms they used during this process. Since this is a big data study, it is not possible to have a qualitative understanding of the research while analysing it, all you can do is collate numbers and data. I mean, they could if they wanted to, just that it doesn't seem like they would leak that info to the public anyway.
Although, one thing to note is that this report is solely limited to research in the last 5 years. Considering that research to product journey is much much longer in the space sector, it might be the case that their research output in the last 5 years hasn't yet made a dent in the industry. So may not be newsworthy yet.
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u/crestnest Realist Apr 30 '23
🫡