o	Moviemaking ranks fourth alongside aviation with 25% overall, although here, too, there’s a clear male-female divergence. Far more women than men score moviemaking as one of the top three areas of American strength (32% vs. 18%), while far more men than women (32% vs. 19%) put aviation in their top three.
o	Pharmaceuticals are contenders for just 17% of respondents overall, putting them behind biotechnology (22%). However, bearing in mind that pharmaceuticals are intimately connected with medical science, which is the top scorer, it’s clear that the whole medico-pharma domain is perceived as by far the strongest area of American innovation.
o	Despite the world-dominating performance of companies such as Google, eBay, Microsoft and Apple, IT hardware and software is ranked in the top three by just 16%, putting it eighth overall.

Where America Should Be Strong on Innovation

The responses to questions 11 and 12 show that Americans see the U.S. as strongest in the area where they want it to be strong: medico-pharma innovation.

o	Asked to choose just three areas where the United States should focus its inventive skills and energies to come up with world-leading innovations, overall 50% of Americans go for medical science and 17% go for pharmaceuticals (compared with 38% and 17% rating them as current top-three areas of innovative strength).
o	As in the previous question, significantly more women than men single out medical science (55% vs. 45%). Not surprisingly, the younger cohorts score it lower than the older cohorts (46%, 51% and 51%).

So the U.S. is clearly getting its innovative focus in line with people’s desires in the medico-pharma field, but in other areas, it looks like there’s way too little innovation where people want it.

o	Just 5% of Americans rate education as one of the three areas where they think the United States is outstandingly inventive, but 41% cite it as one of the three areas on which the U.S. should focus. There is a clear gender divide on this wish, with 45% of women vs. 35% of men.
o	Similarly, just 3% of Americans rate social security and welfare as an outstandingly inventive area in the United States, but 36% think it should be. Once again, there’s a gender divide with 29% of men compared with 43% of women.
o	A low 5% of Americans rate environmental technologies as a top-three inventive field, but 24% overall think it should be. And for once, on a “soft” area, men and women score the same.