Only one U.S. university ranks in the world’s top 10 in STEM. Pfizer’s CEO is calling for change |
Only one U.S. university ranks in the world’s top 10 in STEM. Pfizer’s CEO is calling for change
American and European universities have long been the gold standard in higher education, attracting top students from around the world to institutions like Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford—thanks in large part to their research prowess.
But that dominance is starting to erode—and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla is sounding the alarm.
“Everything in China in research, it is three times the speed, half the cost,” Bourla said earlier this week at a Council on Foreign Relations event, pointing to a dramatic shift in the Nature Index, which tracks research output by institutions. In 2020, universities in the U.S. and Europe dominated the top 10. But now, just half a decade later, nine of those spots are held by Chinese institutions.
China’s rise, he argued, has been deliberate. Over the past few decades, they’ve modernized their regulator, strengthened their intellectual property system, increased funding for research institutions, and created incentives to channel capital into innovation. The result is a research ecosystem that, in some cases, is moving far faster—and more cheaply—than its Western counterparts.
“They built their science,” Bourla said, speaking alongside John Waldron, chief operating officer at Goldman Sachs, and Gina Raimondo, former U.S. secretary of commerce. “So this is where we need to become........