S&T democracy

For technology to benefit the many, social and economic gaps have to be addressed, knowledge shared, technology literacy and skills increased, and education system updated.

Democratization of science

• There is a democratization of science, with citizen science projects like Galaxy Zoo and Higgs Hunters, blurring the lines between public engagement, education and professional science research.
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  Security; Education
• Methods of engineering microorganisms' DNA are readily available and getting more powerful. A “do it yourself” movement is starting to shift genetic engineering out of large institutions and into DIY labs or people’s homes. Home kits to modify the genes of bacteria using CRISPR are on sale online for $140.
• Increasingly open science, sharing of research results, free circulation of knowledge and transparency in methodology, digitalization and growing capacity of data analysis increase collaborative cross-disciplinary research, pooling together resources, brainpower and complementary expertise, thus accelerating innovation. | Related Megatrends: Work; Inequalities; Security; Education

Economic concentration

• There is a concentration of R&D activity, with a small number of firms being responsible for a large proportion of total business R&D: the headquarters of the top 2,000 R&D corporations worldwide are concentrated in just a few economies (mainly USA, Japan and China), own about 75% of global ICT-related patents, 55% of ICT-related designs and 75% of the IP5 patent families related to AI, and about 70% of their total R&D spending is concentrated in the top 200 firms.
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• The number of influential technology companies is expected to shrink from 70 in 2017 to 30 by 2030 and possibly 10 by 2050, increasing the digital oligarchy. 

Increasing power of China

• China has the top 3rd and 4th most powerful supercomputers, (were top two until overtaken by IBM Power Systems in the USA).
• China accounts for 44% of worldwide M2M (machine-to-machine) sim card subscriptions – three times the share of the USA.
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• Chinese aims to become world leader in science and innovation by 2050. In 2017, China's R&D spneding of about $378.6 billion (PPP) accounted for 21% of total world R&D expenditure, with the rate of R&D investment growth significantly exceeding that of the U.S. and the EU.
• China plans to be world leader in AI by 2030. Its R&D intensity might match that of OECD by 2020.
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  Governance 

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