NRC to Focus On Industry Driven, "Commercially Viable" Research 8

[rconnor]

Although slightly old news for Canadians, I’m unsure of its exposure level outside of Canada and I feel it’s one of the most important stories surrounding the question “Where is Canadian Science Going in the Next 5 Years” and it certainly extends outside the frozen tundra of the North.

The National Research Council of Canada (NRC), Canada’s leading organization for scientific research and development, has announced that it will change its philosophy to become a tool box for industry driven R&D and will focus on “commercially viable” research. John McDougall, the president of the NRC said "Innovation is not valuable unless it has commercial value”. Gary Goodyear, the Canadian Minister of State for Science and Technology, also stated “There is [sic] only two reasons why we do science and technology. First is to create knowledge ... second is to use that knowledge for social and economic benefit. Unfortunately, all too often the knowledge gained is opportunity lost.” In a nutshell, curiosity-driven science out, corporate R&D in (and note that this corporate R&D will be partially funded by the government and using government labs/experts).

For me, this results in the union of embarrassment and anger, as someone in the field of science and technology and as a Canadian citizen. Although not a unique occurrence in Harper’s war on science, it is, perhaps, the most abhorrent.

Before I open the floor to see what my fellow engineers think of this decision, I’ll add a few bullet points on why I feel so strongly about this:
[ul]
[li]How can anyone determine what research will become “commercially viable”[/li]
[li]No one thought Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism would be “commercially viable” when it came out but look what it led to. Quantum Theory is one of the most counter-intuitive, most abstract concepts around but without it modern day electronics wouldn’t be anything like what they are today.[/li]
[li]If it’s “commercially viable”, why does the government need to subsidize this research for private corporations? If a corporation is too short-sighted to see the value in “commercially viable” R&D, then shouldn’t we allow free-market Darwinism to let it die?[/li]
[li] - This is why I can’t wrap my head around why even the Conservatives would think this is a good idea[/li]
[li]It discourages companies to promote “in house experts” as they can use NRC resources. In fact it encourages companies to abandon in house R&D programs. Why pay your own experts/lab when you can use NRC’s?[/li]
[li] - Shouldn’t promoting “free-loaders” be an anti-Conservative ideology? (or is it ok when it’s a corporate “free-loader” but bad when it's a citizen "free-loader")[/li]
[li]Disconnect between projects with “societal benefit” and “commercial value”. These things, although not mutually exclusive, are certainly not one in the same goal. This difference is exacerbated when projects are industry driven. Industry has no obligation to produce a “societal benefit”, in fact it is legally responsible to operate in the best interest of its shareholders over that of society or even its employees[/li]
[li]Possibly a less pragmatic, more romanticized, argument but one which I hold close to my chest: curiosity driven science is a humanizing endeavour. It provides purpose, place and connectivity. It’s the only enterprise (aside from pure survival/reproduction) that spans across cultures and time. It is our greatest achievement as a species and one which we can all take pride in. To replace curiosity driven science with economic viability is a great perversion of humanity; it makes me feel empty.[/li]
[/ul]What do you think? Brilliant decision that will bolster the economy or short-sighted invasion of science by corporate lackey governments? (or something slightly less hyperbolically melodramatic)

 

[Sparweb]

KENAT:...I can't help but wonder at some of the research that gets published though, while it may at times be difficult to tell what will be important in the future or what you might unexpectedly learn from it at least some seems that it's only use was to fill someones requirement of having a thesis for their degree...

While I can't prove that all science is of great value, nor disprove that science is never pointless, often the value is hard for the layman to judge.
Another example will serve: I remember reading about an award presented to the author of papers on the subject of "Computational Origami".

I had a long loud WTF moment when I read that, and ignored the rest of the article. But I judged too soon.

Later I was to hear about computational origami again, and about its application to the synthesis of proteins in medical research for producing drugs and proteins used in various therapies. Proteins fold in torturous ways, and chemically constructing them or isolating the right ones selects the medicine that is effective from the chemically-identical compound that is not. Oh. It just has a cute name. So beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or, in the case of science, the value of the tool can only be measured against the size of the problem it can solve.

It was a privately funded award, BTW.

Circling back to the original subject, we can talk more about the layman, especially when the "layman" must be the one making decisions about what can be funded and what should not. The layman we've been talking about is the politician, elected to represent the interest of people. Some would argue also to represent their own personal interests, but leave that for now. The system is theoretically meant to hold these politicians accountable for the results of their choices, and to feed them good information so that they can make good choices. The former has always been under threat. Many people object to others making decisions for them. Understandable, but frankly there are too many decisions to be made in this society for any one person to make the all for himself, unless he wants to live like a caveman. So a democracy, that relies upon its educated population to choose good representatives, also relies upon supplying those citizens with factual information to use when making collective decisions (voting) or individual ones (economic). The accountability to those facts is universal, be they scientific, financial, or ethical.

Lastly, I'd like to point out that the city of Calgary and the neighbouring towns are experiencing EXACTLY this difference between the absence and presence of scientific facts to make good long-term and short-term decisions. And the dangers of ignoring facts. Compare the results of the floods in the main city versus the smaller surrounding ones. The science is there, it seems Calgary was using it, so has Medicine Hat, but other small local governments were NOT USING IT. Numerous other entities in the city and outside it are also making good and bad use of science and facts, and the results are obvious now.



STF

 

[cranky108]

Some development must come from industry, simply because it is so specific to that industry. But on the other side of the coin, that development may help other nonassociated industries who don't have access to the information. Information published as a result of goverment funded development should be available to a larger group of users. This is typically the case in crop testing for farming.

In many cases, and this is my thinking, the development is in the interests of many users and should be available to the many users. However, as in the case of drug manufacturers, there are many end users, but few manufacturers that can develop the product, so the development should not be goverment funded, except in the few cases where it would be too costly for industry to develop.

I'm not sure where my thinking is leading, but a mix of funding privite, and goverment, long and short term is needed. Also needed is funding from special interests with a specific result in mind.

It appears short sighted to have such funding decisions in the hands of such a few people, where universities can disperse the fundings by the decisions of the boards that must maintain a status for the university. One specific project buried in the budget won't kill a university, but bragging rights for a finding will keep its status up. And that what we want is to provide a source of bragging rights in exchange for development of a paper of usful information.

The road that is being described dosen't do that. It appears to head more to pet projects, and money for votes.