[nedsma]

While the world is traditionally looking at the West to lead new scientific advancements, they might be wrong. India and especially China are heavily investing into their science projects which are costing less than comparable projects in the US or the EU. India today launched a model of the reusable space shuttle prototype that took 5 years to develop and cost less than $15 million. How is that awesome? On the other hand, the US spends more on the defense R&D than on all other sectors combined (health, energy, space, environment etc). The EU's science projects often suffer from project decentralization, bureaucracy and member countries' varying public approval rating that are affected by political issues: Greek debt, migrant flood, situation in Ukraine, terrorism etc.

[simula67]

The problem with India though is that the country's education system was started by the British to recruit low level civil servants. I suspect that type of education system would be biased towards creating low level office workers and not pioneers of science and it continues to this day. The basic principles of science and critical thinking are still not a priority in our education system.

[pm90]

The way you put it, it almost seems like the whole Indian education system has remained the same since the British left. There has been a lot of reform and progress towards making science and mathematics more accessible to the masses.

[dnautics]

investment alone does not good science make. (obviously this is a slightly self-serving argument for me, but:) much of the best science has been done on a budget.