Fungible funding September 3, 2014
Posted by mareserinitatis in engineering, research, science.Tags: engineering, funding, science, science funding
trackback
I was reading a discussion the other day on funding sources when it occurred to me that I’ve made a big switch on the topic. I used to think that industry funded research was *always* bad, *always* biased.
Nope.
I guess being in engineering has changed my view considerably. A lot of engineering work is funded by industry, and this is a good thing. First, it means that the research actually has a chance of getting used. Second, it is helpful to the majority of researchers that are likely unable to get any funding from large governmental funding agencies.
In engineering, a lot of the conferences I’ve gone to have had large numbers of researchers from industry. (In a couple sub-fields I’m involved in, *most* of the people come from industry.) Those fields are the “too applied for NSF” type work that is still rather interesting and useful. Without companies funding some of their own research, they probably wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Despite my great appreciation of the system we have for government funding, it is still very limited. And even when things are funded, I’m not sure how many of these concepts actually make it to industry.
Now, looking at science from this engineering-informed background, I’m not as suspicious about industry-funded projects. Admittedly, science has a different approach than engineering, but I wonder how many areas are being underfunded. There are far more good ideas and questions to be answered than funding available. Is it better to let a question sit unanswered or to try to work with an industry partner to do some type of study? Just about every university will have a conflict-of-interest policy. While these aren’t bulletproof, I would assume they’re going to hit some of the basics. And maybe, just maybe, researchers really want to find the answers to their questions no matter how they get the funding.
That isn’t to say we shouldn’t be skeptical when research is funded by industry…but neither should we just write it off as biased.
I also blog at Engineer Blogs, home away from home to some of the best engineering blogs.
Comments»
No comments yet — be the first.