As they work to document the extent of offshoring in areas such as chip design, experts are trying to get their arms around globalization's implications for the engineering profession and, more important, for the future of U.S. innovation.
Recent examinations of the issue by some of the profession's top thinkers have found that the United States still leads in areas like advanced chip design. But there's concern that the United States lead could be shrinking. Indeed, rising costs, competitive pressures and the global transmission of intellectual property are reshaping the engineering profession and the nature of innovation in ways that are just beginning to be understood.
