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Research focus in US and EU seems a bit different. Europe produces a lot of high quality science. Research in US is on the other hand increasingly application-
by aborsy 6y ago
Research focus in US and EU seems a bit different.
Europe produces a lot of high quality science. Research in US is on the other hand increasingly application-focused (something that EU is not very good at).
This is my observation as a former researcher who has experience in both regions; I don’t have references. It’s partly driven by culture, and economic system. The strong public system in Europe supports longer term research, whereas the strong private sector in US focuses on applications and commercialization. It wasn’t not like that in US few decades ago.
- ramraj07 6y agoCitation needed? Never heard or noticed any bias like this before.
- chronic83027 6y agoLook at university research labs, and see where they get their funding from. Companies tend to fund applied research. Funding in Europe, whether academic or industry motivated, is simply lacking across all scientific, engineering, and social science disciplines.
- SeanLuke 6y agoYou seriously think that university research in the US is largely funded or driven by companies? This is utterly wrong. *Edit*. The question is why the united states has the "best research universities". That is a very general-level question and the Parent made a very general, and very wrong, claim in response. Regardless of whether some specific fields might have more industrial funding than others, it's easy to google the overall portion: and industry funding is quite minor. https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/2018-11/UniSource1.jpg https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/2018-11/UniSource1....
- ubercore 6y agoDepending on the field, it can be. Lots of University-affiliated labs in the medical field get significant industry funding.
- iancmceachern 6y agoThis seems on topic: https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/newsroom/newsn/10721/the-color-of-money-funding-sources-for-university-research-influence-commercial-legacy https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/newsroom/newsn/10721/the-color...
- DiggyJohnson 6y ago> is largely funded or driven by companies GP never implied it was the largest contributor, and yes, depending on your field a significant amount of funding does come from the private sector.
- chronic83027 6y ago> You seriously think that university research in the US is largely funded or driven by companies? This is utterly wrong. Slow down there bud. Where did I say that? Unless you’re talking about AI/ML, then yes, university labs receive more from companies, than government funding agencies.
- SeanLuke 6y ago> Slow down there bud. Where did I say that? If I miserepresented you, then I am sorry. > Unless you’re talking about AI/ML, then yes, university labs receive more from companies, than government funding agencies. This is simply untrue. Companies comprise less than 10% of overall university research funding, and AI/ML is far from dominant. It's easy to verify this.
- booleandilemma 6y agoHave you heard of Bell Labs?
- ur-whale 6y ago> Have you heard of Bell Labs? While I would tend to agree that private funding for research is way better in the US, Bell Labs is not necessarily a good example. True, the tech. output of the outfit was amazing, but they had massive govt support (among other things, they were given an official monopoly by the USG).
- gumby 6y agoIt wasn't just the monopoly itself but their revenue and profit structure was driven by the research (cap ex and op ex were treated differently by the consent decree, and they had performance metrics to meet as demand grew). Research also had valuable P.R. value.
- foepys 6y agoAt least in Germany a lot of research isn't being done at universities but at dedicated research institutes. Quite a few PhD students are working part time at uni and part time at one of the Fraunhofer Institutes or at Forschungszentrum Jülich. Another European example is CERN in Switzerland. This model just doesn't conform with all those research university rankings.
- 908B64B197 6y agoI wonder how much it contributes. American Visiting Researchers at CERN, since they remain attached to their Universities, probably count toward their institution's ranking. But a full time researcher at CERN doesn't. The JPL at Caltech and the Lincoln Laboratory at MIT are the opposite of that. They do, what could be considered mostly government research but I'm sure 100% of their citation count goes toward their respective institutions.
- ruph123 6y agoOr even more importantly the Max Planck Institutes and Helmholz. Max Planck society is a heavy weight for sure and the co-operation with universities pretty unique as they need each other and are fully public (other than e.g. American private entities like JPL).
- systemvoltage 6y agoI don’t know why anyone should believe you. Can you source some concrete facts if any? This is a provocative comment ready to start flame wars. Please tell specifics and not paint broad brushstrokes to flame the fires. I’m sorry to flag your comment. Edit: One source we can look at the awards given to fundamental research. They’re overwhelmingly US-based. Fields, Nobel, Turing, etc. This contradicts the popular generalization.
- watwut 6y agoSomeone having positive opinion of non American is not starting flamewar. Overreaction to it is. Threatening to flag it just because you disagree, or because someone having positive opinion of something in eu hurts you feeling is absurd.
- systemvoltage 6y agoSo far, this thread has been the most uninteresting. These types of opinions lead to completely unsubstantiated back and forth. It’s not even remotely close to truth unless we have some facts to disclose. Threatening to flag!? I apologized to flag and provided reasons for it. Far cry from a threat. Obviously, you’ve all agreed that it was an overreaction. I’d say, the entire article is flamewar prone. How can you say something is best?
- ur-whale 6y ago> US-based. Fields, Nobel, Turing, How many of these were actually educated in the US, as in from primary school, and how many came to the US to complete a PhD after having received an education outside of the US?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bananabiscuit 6y agoA bit of an overreaction here? I’m pretty sure it’s ok for people to share their personal observations.
- User23 6y agoI've noticed EU CS grads are on average much stronger scientifically than US ones. With notable exceptions, the typical US undergraduate curriculum is more of a trade school. That’s fine of course, but definitely not the skillset needed for novel research or even properly applying recent research. Edit: Apparently I’ve struck a nerve. But this has been my experience working and hiring at two of the FAANGs. The teams doing the most scientifically challenging work are predominantly European educated and the team members that aren’t are from the most elite US institutions.
- exdsq 6y agoCould this be due to EU universities studying specifically one subject while US universities require credits in other topics like Languages?
- ma2rten 6y agoI think that is mostly compensated by bachelors taking an additional year. I don't know if what parent comment says is true at all, but if it is I think it's because historically universities didn't have a Bachelor's/Masters system in Europe. At least in Germany and the Netherlands you would study for 5 years and that is still the expectation. For less academically inclined students there are other options such as trade schools.
- alistairSH 6y agoDo US engineering programs actually require foreign languages and other liberal arts coursework? That wasn't the case at UVA or VT in the 90s.
- thebooktocome 6y agoYeah, many of them do.
- tharne 6y agoYes, most U.S. universities require a broad range of subjects outside of one's chosen major. This is a good thing in my book. You have your whole life to develop an ever-narrowing level of specialization.
- scythe 6y agoIn my medphys program we had a unit on how to get research funding after grad school. The instructor explained that the most likely source by far is industry, followed by government, and last academia/other. It's been this way for a while as I understand it.
- tinyhouse 6y agoI agree. Also, some universities in Europe, like ENS in Paris, produced more field medal recipients than all top US universities combined. But way more people heard about Harvard than ENS. English helps too.
- carlmr 6y agoNot only English, but also the marketing through Hollywood.
- BalinKing 6y agoCitation needed—I see Harvard and Princeton as having 7 alumni each, which combined is more than ENS' 12.
- raverbashing 6y agoFrom the list in Wikipedia it seems a lot of researchers move institutions after they were awarded, so maybe that is it. But yes, the score might change with time.
- cdavid 6y agomathematics have historically been a focus of scientific training in France for a very long time. I don't think it is representative of a more general trend TBH.
- amelius 6y ago> application-focused (something that EU is not very good at) Probably because of the investor climate, and applied research is a good fit for companies.
- visualradio 6y agoResearch in the U.S. has tended towards applications due to promotion of agricultural productivity research and agricultural extension services by various U.S. founders in the 1700s and due to the land-grant university system established in the 1800s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land-grant_university https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land-grant_university
- asdff 6y agoMost government agencies like NIH and NSF are funding mostly basic research, because as you note private companies do not invest in this.
- aj7 6y agoI believe this is almost 100% wrong - reversed, until fairly recently. European basic research was in the toilet for decades; they often did the second experiment in everything.