GÖTTINGEN, Germany: Decades of underfunding and a distaste for the elitism nurtured by Nazis have left the third-largest economy in the world trailing its global competitors.

It may have brought the world aspirin, rocket science, quantum physics and the diesel engine, but the days of German scientific glory are long gone and the country is hunting for a new generation of Einsteins.

Decades of underfunding and a distaste for the elitism nurtured by Nazis have left Germany, with the third-largest economy in the world, trailing its global competitors.

With only five universities in the U.S.-dominated top 100 - the University of Munich is highest at 48 - Germany has started a program to compete for funding and create its own “Ivy League.”

Nobel Prizes awarded last month to a German physicist and a German chemist have revived pride in the country's scientific heritage.

“There is a fresh wind,” said Kurt von Figura, president of Georg-August University in Göttingen, one of the oldest and most prestigious educational institutions in the country. “You lose a good reputation over a long period of time and it also takes a long time to rebuild it.”

But until this year, the recent record on Nobel Prizes had provided little comfort.

From 1901 to 1931, German universities and institutes produced 15 Nobel laureates in chemistry and 10 in physics - more than any other country.

But since 1984, research at U.S. institutions has yielded almost 10 times the number of German-based recipients in both fields.

“It's hard to measure but some data suggest Germany is not doing so well any more and it needs to do all it can to push ahead,” said Klaus Schrüfer, an economist at SEB in Frankfurt. “Innovation is essential for the economy in the long term.”

German companies are proud of the part they played in establishing Germany's reputation as a scientific powerhouse.

German children still learn about the chemist Felix Hoffmann, who invented aspirin at Bayer in 1897, and Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz, whose work on the first vehicle to be powered by an internal combustion engine led to the automaker Daimler.

After a backlash against the Nazi ethic of natural selection and survival of the fittest, universities have focused on equality rather than individual excellence.

“The egalitarian approach, born of a fear of elitism after the war, worked well in many ways, but people forgot you can't train everyone to get a Nobel Prize,” said Stefan Treue, director of the German Primate Center, an institute in Göttingen that works closely with the university.

These factors, coupled with funding shortages - the United States spends almost twice as much of its gross domestic product on higher education as Germany - have contributed to a brain drain. Business in Germany is worried.

By 2010, small and midsize companies will lack 30,000 researchers, said DIHK, the association of the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce.

“Today we need to invest in research to be able to develop and produce the goods for tomorrow,” said Stephan Wimmers, who specializes in technology at DIHK. “If we don't have the scientists to do the work, we won't have competitive products.”

Wimmers said Germany had an advantage in the relatively close ties many scientists have to industry, Those links are especially prevalent in the automotive sector, which accounts for about 20 percent of German jobs, he said, but less strong in the life sciences.

Industry accounts for about two-thirds of spending on research and development, with the remainder coming from the public sector. Many other European Union governments provide a higher share of financing, which indicates that a good deal of basic science in Germany gets transformed into economic activity.

However, there are worrying developments in patent filings. Germany, traditionally one of the leading holders of patents, has in recent years fallen behind such competitors as China and South Korea. The number of German patents, which peaked in 2000 at about 53,000 filings, has slipped to about 48,500. China and South file more than double that, while the United States and Japan lead with about 400,000 patents each.

Experts say the quality of German patents is deteriorating as most are in aging industries like engineering.

“The world is moving on and, while Germany is still world leader in automotive and engineering, we are not keeping up in newer branches which will be vital in future,” said Ludger Wössmann of the Ifo economic institute.

German scientists say the new financing program to promote top-level research and improve the quality of German universities is crucial because of the element of competition it has introduced.

“This is more than hot air from politicians,” Treue said. “We must work hard to make it work and the goals won't be reached in the first 5 or 10 years but we are on the right track.”