Drop in BERD troubling

I saw a recent news story on US business expenditures on R&D (BERD) having dropped for the first time in the 13 years the sort of study has been conducted. When Googling for a link to the story I found a report that the same is true for the European Union. This is troubling, particularly given that times of recession are better times than most to invest in R&D and innovation. We need industry to step up and invest. College applied research funding programs such as the NSERC CCIP are de facto instruments of the state to socialize industry to spend on R&D, giving our student innovation literacy in the process. This point is made in the recent Conference Board of Canada report on applied research.