

US scientific output begins to slow - old-gregg
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/01/report-us-scientific-output-begins-to-slow.ars

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mbowcock
I recently read an interview with Eric Schmidt discussing how companies can't
afford to spend money on fundamental research because it doesn't contribute to
the bottom line. Since any public companies only responsibility is to produce
a profit for shareholders. He seemed to want universities doing R&D with
government money. I would prefew the government not get involved with funding
research to be used by the private sector (libertarian tendencies?) but I
don't see any other way around the lack of R&D.

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bbgm
In some industries, e.g. life science, publicly funded academic research forms
the vast majority of the R part of R&D. The models for commercializing this
research need some work, but with the risks associated, long time spans and
the sheer diversity of researchers required, it will be very difficult for
commercial companies to actually do the basic research. They are much better
placed to take a promising project or two and then drill down.

One more point - I am not sure just volume of papers is a good measure. In the
ideal situation, that should be going down if we manage to somehow ween
ourselves away from the publish or perish model.

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timr
Before Bayh-Dole allowed universities to commercialize their federally funded
research, companies had no trouble doing in-house R&D. They made it a
reasonable part of their budgets because they _had_ to do so, if they wanted
to exclusively profit from their inventions.

Thanks to Bayh-Dole, University research is far more commercial, companies
have slashed or eliminated their research budgets, and it's harder for
scientists to get jobs. The private sector doesn't feel the need to pay for
R&D, when the universities will do it on the government's dime.

