Follow the money

摘要

Nanotechnology research spending worldwide expanded rapidly during the past decade. The US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), announced in 2000, kicked off the funding boom: federal spending jumped from US$464 million in 2001 to nearly $1.8 billion in 2010. China, Germany, Japan and Korea soon followed in setting up national nanotechnology programmes, and the European Union (EU) designated nanotechnology as a research priority in 2002. More than 60 countries now have national nanotechnology programmes2. Global public investment in research and development (R&D) in nanotechnology reached $8.4 billion in 2008, with a further $8.6 billion of corporate funding.