The table compares data on public investment, along with the amount of PHD-qualified experts across five different scientifc domains for the years 2015 and 2025.
Overall, governments allocated most of their public budget in medical research in both years, whereas they dedicated the least amount for artificial intelligence in 2015 and environmental science in 2025. Space exploration field comprised the highest proportion of doctoral-level scientists, whilst environmental science had the least amount.
In 2015, over 150 billion of dollars were invested in medical research, whereas this number was more than halved for environmental science, standing at a mere 65 billion. Both space exploration and Biotechnology were greatly funded, with 95.8 and 88 billion respectively. Conversely, artificial intelligence benefited of the least amount of income, with only 40.2 billion of dollars, accounting for almost a quarter of medical research.
By contrast, ten years later, the latter field (artificial intelligence) ranked second in terms of funding, undergoing an impressisve climb where it has more than tripled, shifting from 40 to 150 billion approximately. Likewise, environmental science investment almost doubled from 65 to roughly 115 billion of dollars. On the other side, both medical research and biotechnology funding have witness a sharp increase of approximately 60 and 50 billion respectively, whereas space exploration income rose slightly, from 95.8 to 125.2 billion of dollars.
Still in 2025, PHD-level scientists constituted the highest proportion in space exploration, with an impressive 85%, followed by biotechnology at 81%, and medical research with 78% On the other side, both environmentall science and artificial intelligence experts were only 72% and 65% respectively to have pursued such studies. It seems that the more public funding a scientific domain has benefited from in 2025 compared to 2015, the more doctoral-level scientists are present.