It’s the physics depts etc who by the nature of the blue sky work often have no saleable ‘product’.

Try a maths department. The applied side can usually do ok by giving a theoretical link back to a vague engineering / climate / biological / financial application problem but pure can really struggle and that is the forge making the tools for virtually all hard science.

I don’t see priests in any supermarket, or indeed anywhere, these days because either a) there aren’t any left because the Church can’t afford to provide for them since diocese donations have collapsed; or b) they’re too busy praying for your soul 😉

Does anyone else think it’s ironic that a thread entitled “Science” has degenerated into arguments about religions on the first page? 😕

Anyway. I think science deserves more cash. Yes, the government should stump up for it. It will pay us back great dividends in the long term. Perhaps hard science subjects should have much lower fees at university than easy arts subjects? (I say that as an easy arts subject graduate.)

RE: funding, government funding is needed, companies may back some long game investments but not the real blue sky out there stuff.

What if it’s overcast?

b) they’re too busy praying for your soul

Ah, that’ll be it then.

Ah well, no rest for the wicked…

One other point is that wealth is created at it’s source by creation / production of something.

Services between different companies is just moving money around, some value may be added but nothing is created. We do not have massive oil reserves like Canada, or a massive manufacturing sector like China what we (the UK) do have is the possibility to create ideas and “mine” them. This needs two things

1. Good new science, which itself require funding at a levels in all areas to create the new idea(s).

2. Good risk taking entrepreneurs to invest and push the final step.

We need more of both.

Elfinsafety – Member
What if it’s overcast?

If you have ever worked in science you will know it’s frequently overcast.

More funding is very much required, at a core level that enables us to keep our labs going, whilst concentrating most energy on really developing research ideas (not worrying about keeping the lights on).
It’s hard to address this problem of absolute funding levels without concluding that we have too many departments (at least in my area). And you don’t get a grip of that issue without totally turning our higher education system upside down.

The balance between top down and bottom up is way out of line, and symptomatic of the research councils themselves being pulled way over to the direction of the government. Top down, mandated research is a ridiculous approach reminiscent of a Soviet planned economy. Totally at odds with how ideas grow and develop. Yet that is what we are seeing in microcosm with the EPSRC trying to dictate what and how science is to be done.

Total bottom up research is also very wrong – you just end up with a bunch of scientists dicking around (the good ol days 🙂 ). But there is clearly a golden mean of directed, curiosity-driven research that we are losing sight of.

R&d needs lots of cash and time and no guarantee of a profit. I think the problems with pure private research is that only large companies can invest and they don’t have a monopoly on good ideas – in fact they can be very stodgy; they will only invest where the profit is obvious because of public shareholdings; the public (government) get no benefit for any contributions.

Needs a better funding model. Perhaps SMEs should be able to apply for a large r&d grant where they end up with minority % IPR and a royalty over any useful commercial applications that later arise; the public/Govt profits from its investment.

As a scientist recently under the threat of redundancy at a major cancer institute (horizon are making one of those dumbed down documentaries about the place at the moment) the cuts are going to do serious long term damage to science and innovation in this country
The current economic climate means that charitable donations are well down and then come cuts to funding, combined with cuts to the NHS and the massive cuts to universities, where a lot of collaboration goes on and obviously training of future scientists.
The big pharma companies are already deserting the country, i think theyve seen whats coming.
One of the very few things britain leads the world in is science and engineering as a career option its been declining for years, I know a lot of very good scientists whove left the field because the salaries are so poor and the pressures to win a limited pool of funding so great.
In that respect you cant blame brian cox, physics funding is taking such a battering that he needs the extra work.
The rise in popular science is good and bad when the press release means more than the quality of the actual work you get disasters like the MMR lies so gleefuly spread by the worthless media in this country and failed again by politicians who have no understanding of what they are doing.

yet the arts get their funding pretty much without restriction

We work on with people on all sides of the science / arts / social science divides, people in our lab funded by epsrc, ahrc, arts council, I think possibly also esrc.

The non science people still have to do impact statements and all that stuff.

If you’re working in art art (as opposed to arts academic subjects), you have to deal with arts council and other arts funders, who have similar things about public impact / community involvement etc.

Plus arts subject and art art funding amounts are teeny tiny amounts compared to our huge science grants.

buzz-lightyear – Member
R&d needs lots of cash and time and no guarantee of a profit. I think the problems with pure private research is that only large companies can invest and they don’t have a monopoly on good ideas – in fact they can be very stodgy; they will only invest where the profit is obvious because of public shareholdings; the public (government) get no benefit for any contributions.

Needs a better funding model. Perhaps SMEs should be able to apply for a large r&d grant where they end up with minority % IPR and a royalty over any useful commercial applications that later arise; the public/Govt profits from its investment.

This really only deals with the funding of last stage of scientific development. There is much more ground work that has to come before hand to give scientist and engineers the the tools and knowledge to solve these final problems. The vast majority of science is of this type and can’t really bee seen to have any direct payoff nor can there be IP on it. IP only happens at the final stage of development. We would not progress our knowledge in science very far if IP was rife.

Not completely OT, but if you are interested in how the media (mis)reports science, and like working yourself up into a tumescent rage, Bad Science is well worth a read.

Agreed excellent blog. The Gillian Mckeith entries a worth a read alone.

There is a book too, which I assume is a compilation of articles, and also excellent.

There is a book too, which I assume is a compilation of articles, and also excellent.

Nah, the Bad Science book is a proper book written from scratch, not just a collection of the columns. It has material from his articles and blog in there but it’s all re-written and hangs together nicely. Excellent, as you say, and eye-opening, well worth a read.