The cash crunch is finally hitting the U.S. corporate innovation system head-on. Today's Wall Street Journal reports on a forthcoming study by the Battelle Memorial Institute that forecasts a 1.6 % fall in total U.S. R&D spending in 2009, after decades of faster-than-inflation increases. (link) It's not just the US, though - global R&D spending will faltten out in 2009.

The report is optimistic about the long-term outlook: