April 30, 2009: With more than $40 billion in government funds having been poured into nanotechnology research worldwide over the last five years, countries are now emphasizing the importance of application-driven research in this emerging field while a shakeup is occurring among the leading nations in nanotech spending, according to a new white paper from London-based Cientifica Ltd.

Cientifica, a consulting firm in emerging technologies, in its yearly analysis of government funding figures is reporting in a free white paper “Nanotechnology Takes a Deep breath, and Prepares to Save the World!” that governments will be spending nearly $10 billion on nanotechnology research in 2009, but despite this huge figure government spending has begun to slow down. Spending will only grow by 9.3 percent from 2008-2012 compared with the 130% increase witnessed from 2004-2008.

With this slowdown, governments are urging more emphasis on application-driven research that will help individual countries meet their particular grand challenges whether it is energy independence or clean drinking water.

Cientifica’s research has also reveals that the long-time leaders of nanotechnology funding, the US and Japan, have now fallen to third and fourth behind the EU and Russia, with the US being tied with China for third.