Monday, March 14 2005 18:06 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Houston: Tight restrictions on student visas for foreign graduates will hasten the erosion of America's global dominance in innovation, according to a study in Houston.

The study provides economic results about the contributions of foreign graduate students and skilled immigrants to US innovation and technological change.

Conducted by Economics Professor Keith Maskus of University of Colorado, and by Gnanaraj Chellaraj and Aaditya Mattoo of the World Bank, the study finds that strict enforcement of restrictions on student visas could deteriorate much of the innovative activity sparked by the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, which allowed US universities to commercialise research results.

Fewer foreign graduate students have entered US universities since 9/11, based on recent survey data, the study observed.

A 10 per cent increase in the number of foreign graduate students in the US, however, would raise patent applications by 3.3 per cent, according to researchers.

The US presently enjoys an advantage in exporting the services of higher education, especially in training scientists and engineers, Maskus said.

As countries such as India and China improve their graduate science programs, visa restrictions could put US institutions at a competitive disadvantage, he added.

With such an increase, the researchers said that patents granted to universities would also go up by 6 per cent, while non-university patent grants would go up by 4 per cent.

Annual licensing revenue from US patents amounts to tens of billions of Dollars, with pharmaceutical, biotechnology and informational technology industries being among the leaders.

The study also found that US-born graduate students have no detectable effect on patent applications or grants. Maskus explained that this was largely due to the fact American-born students tend to study subjects outside of sciences and engineering, two leading areas in innovation.

"There is still a much higher return for American students to learn to run a company or become lawyers," he said. Maskus and his colleagues developed a model using US Census Bureau and National Science Foundation data to test the productivity of graduate students and skilled workers, both domestic and foreign, in producing patent awards to university and private businesses.