7 ms·

Coming out of Uni with a PhD in the UK in 2003, I went looking for some "curiosity driven" research and didn't find any. The dotcom bust had sucked budgets dry

Coming out of Uni with a PhD in the UK in 2003, I went looking for some "curiosity driven" research and didn't find any. The dotcom bust had sucked budgets dry and no-one was hiring. I've dipped my toe back into the market a few times and not found any. I'd have to move to the States and even then there was no guarantee of doing unfettered research. I carried on in my spare time but it's not the same as being surrounded in a melting pot of like minded (yet different subject) people.

moffkalast 5y ago
If you try making your curiosity a bit more military related I'm sure you'll find something pretty quick haha.
- q-big 5y ago
  Not if you score low on the "authoritarian" psychometric trait. ;-)
  - cronix 5y ago
    The military just follows the orders of the authoritarian government that funds and controls them. They are just an extension.
- brainwipe 5y ago
  My PhD was part funded by the military and even then - nope.
mcguire 5y ago
I got a PhD in 2004 and could not find any non-academic research positions in the US. (I was pretty fed up with academia at the time, so I didn't look at those.) The closest I got was a job offer from a group at Telcordia Research, but when I went up for an in-person interview, I found the building mostly empty, most of the people there very bitter, and the only group that was hiring doing product development, not research. (And it was in New Jersey.) I declined the offer and went back to contracting. At IBM. That wasn't a smart move either.
- mathattack 5y ago
  Telecordia is a disaster. When your primary customers are fixed line telecoms, you don’t have to be that great. IBM isn’t good either.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jll29 5y ago
Sometimes a good manager lets you work on ideas you believe in, as long as you continue to pay lip service to "the official project" so that one can move forward as well. The term "under the radar R&D" has not been unheard of in many corporate research labs. But what worries me there are reports that the corporate R&D lab as an institution is in decline. I cannot judge whether this is true, since I recently switched back to academia to have a bit more autonomy after a decade in industry R&D.
- Fronzie 5y ago
  In semiconductor-industry related companies, I've seen the departments continuing to exist, but the expected time-to-market for R&D decrease from 10 to 5 to 3 years. With an expected product launch in 3 years, it's effectively development, without any research.
DrHedgehog 5y ago
I'm a researcher in Biotech, and honestly, a working at curiosity driven research institute is all I've ever wanted from a career. I have the credentials and have proven myself academically, and in industry, but this kind of position is just so hard to find! I really just need time and a small amount of resources to work on ideas. I usually struggle to get more than 20% of my time working on my own ideas. I've spoken with colleagues over the years, and when I bring up this desire, so many of them feel the same way. Many of these people are incredibly accomplished and come from top institutions. What a waste to not give that magnitude of creativity an outlet! The only path I see to this type of life now, is independent wealth. It just strikes me as such an opportunity to create a place for these people. If you build it they will come!
- chii 5y ago
  > It just strikes me as such an opportunity to create a place for these people the problem is finding and filtering the applicants that come to such a place. How do you tell the difference between somebody who just phones it in, from somebody who would actually produce some valid research breakthroughs? Unless you have unlimited resources to spend, this is a difficult problem to solve.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Very good question and a hard problem of itself. "Success leaves clues" affords some possible hope, though there's also a long history suggesting progress and individual attribution are limited and difficult to assess. There's a history of major research institutions, public and private, including those of Edison, GE, Dupont, AT&T Bell Labs, Xerox, IBM, Microsoft, Google and other companies, as well as the Manhattan Project, WWII signals and computing research (see especially Norbert Wiener's account), the space race and Apollo project, the Santa Fe Institute, and more. These should afford guidance. Often one clear trend is that results follow something of a sigmoid curve --- slow initially, a period of strong progress, followed by a decline. Much engineering trends toward an optimum, not some unlimited potential. Even Moore's Law likely ultimately follows this path.
  - DrHedgehog 5y ago

moffkalast 5y ago

If you try making your curiosity a bit more military related I'm sure you'll find something pretty quick haha.

q-big 5y ago
Not if you score low on the "authoritarian" psychometric trait. ;-)
- cronix 5y ago
  The military just follows the orders of the authoritarian government that funds and controls them. They are just an extension.
brainwipe 5y ago
My PhD was part funded by the military and even then - nope.

mcguire 5y ago

I got a PhD in 2004 and could not find any non-academic research positions in the US. (I was pretty fed up with academia at the time, so I didn't look at those.) The closest I got was a job offer from a group at Telcordia Research, but when I went up for an in-person interview, I found the building mostly empty, most of the people there very bitter, and the only group that was hiring doing product development, not research. (And it was in New Jersey.) I declined the offer and went back to contracting. At IBM. That wasn't a smart move either.

mathattack 5y ago
Telecordia is a disaster. When your primary customers are fixed line telecoms, you don’t have to be that great. IBM isn’t good either.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jll29 5y ago

Sometimes a good manager lets you work on ideas you believe in, as long as you continue to pay lip service to "the official project" so that one can move forward as well. The term "under the radar R&D" has not been unheard of in many corporate research labs. But what worries me there are reports that the corporate R&D lab as an institution is in decline. I cannot judge whether this is true, since I recently switched back to academia to have a bit more autonomy after a decade in industry R&D.

Fronzie 5y ago
In semiconductor-industry related companies, I've seen the departments continuing to exist, but the expected time-to-market for R&D decrease from 10 to 5 to 3 years. With an expected product launch in 3 years, it's effectively development, without any research.

DrHedgehog 5y ago

I'm a researcher in Biotech, and honestly, a working at curiosity driven research institute is all I've ever wanted from a career. I have the credentials and have proven myself academically, and in industry, but this kind of position is just so hard to find! I really just need time and a small amount of resources to work on ideas. I usually struggle to get more than 20% of my time working on my own ideas. I've spoken with colleagues over the years, and when I bring up this desire, so many of them feel the same way. Many of these people are incredibly accomplished and come from top institutions. What a waste to not give that magnitude of creativity an outlet! The only path I see to this type of life now, is independent wealth. It just strikes me as such an opportunity to create a place for these people. If you build it they will come!

chii 5y ago
> It just strikes me as such an opportunity to create a place for these people the problem is finding and filtering the applicants that come to such a place. How do you tell the difference between somebody who just phones it in, from somebody who would actually produce some valid research breakthroughs? Unless you have unlimited resources to spend, this is a difficult problem to solve.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Very good question and a hard problem of itself. "Success leaves clues" affords some possible hope, though there's also a long history suggesting progress and individual attribution are limited and difficult to assess. There's a history of major research institutions, public and private, including those of Edison, GE, Dupont, AT&T Bell Labs, Xerox, IBM, Microsoft, Google and other companies, as well as the Manhattan Project, WWII signals and computing research (see especially Norbert Wiener's account), the space race and Apollo project, the Santa Fe Institute, and more. These should afford guidance. Often one clear trend is that results follow something of a sigmoid curve --- slow initially, a period of strong progress, followed by a decline. Much engineering trends toward an optimum, not some unlimited potential. Even Moore's Law likely ultimately follows this path.
- DrHedgehog 5y ago