A report from the National Research Council's Board on Science, Technology and Economic Policy has identified trends in research investment that could spell trouble for industrial growth in the US.

Because of a budget deficit reduction and changes in agency missions, the federal government has pared back support for electrical engineering research. Funding declined 32 percent between 1993 and 1997, the last year for which data are available. Other fields that experienced funding reductions of 20 percent or more included physics, mechanical engineering and geology.

The report also detailed the effects of increased protection of intellectual property rights and called for new methods of gathering reliable data for evaluating public economic policies.