One issue regarding U.S. international assistance for such capacity-building in developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America is how best to take into account the science and equipment assistance being received from Germany, France and the United Kingdom to enhance complementary and to most effectively leverage typically modest program funds. It should be noted that this report uses a narrower definition of social science degrees than many Nordic and Germanic European countries. In this report, social sciences include social and behavioral sciences, but do not include humanities. These data also provide the basis for key indicators of future growth and demand for scientists and engineers. A concluding section of the report discusses prospects for the future based on trends in the growth and integration of European science and technology.
Several caveats are in order.
First, data are compiled from numerous national and international sources and are not strictly comparable. In addition, degree categories in different countries are not academically equivalent. This is especially true for doctoral degrees in science and engineering. Although these data problems are not trivial, every attempt has been made to develop trends that are approximately equivalent at the broad aggregate level. Education statistics for each country were categorized by broad fields of science and, when possible, re-configured to the universally accepted classification scheme, the International Standard Classification of Education.