The recent funding increases in Singapore and the Czech Republic were significant, but details of the split between applied and basic research were not given. This is an issue which wiorries William Brody, president of the Johns Hopkins University in todays Financial Times.
Brody writes:American and European economies face an unprecedented challenge to their technological leadership of the past two centuries. Yet researchers in industry, academia and government are playing it safe.
Industrial basic research has failed to demonstrate a return on investment that satisfies the ravenous appetite of financial markets for short-term earnings growth. As a result, companies have been directing capital to applied research and development, rather than basic invention and innovation.
It is a tricky balancing act for many governments, and one for which there is no easy solution. Spend too much on pure research and you face allegations that the money may well never produce any economic effect, cut pure research and you may miss that key breakthrough technology.
It all comes down to when you expect a return on your investment. While nobody in the corporate world has much patience beyond the next quarters results, Brody suggests that we need to increase government spending for basic research, starting with a modern man-on-the-moon project: developing practical alternatives to fossil-based fuel sources.
The knowledge we possess today will not punch our ticket to the world economy of the future. This is a flight with no discount fares. The alternative is to slip into economic irrelevance.