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1) Why would companies pay for basic research? They used to get that research for free. 2) Very few schools have endowments that are large enough to support cu

1) Why would companies pay for basic research? They used to get that research for free. 2) Very few schools have endowments that are large enough to support current faculty research costs; even Harvard can only support all research off their endowment for about a year. 3) Endowments are now taxed, so they will have even less available for research.

tracker1 1y ago
1) because they're the ones who most benefit from it. Because they still need the research itself, even if someone else isn't paying for it. 2) Harvard has a $54 billion endowment and spends $6.4 billion a year, that doesn't include tuition and fees, that's just what they have in the bank. 3) Actually spending the money is tax deductible and better for the economy.
- beowulfey 1y ago
  Endowment funds are not a checking account, they are not just cash on hand for universities to spend as they please. They could certainly liquidate, but then each year their disbursement would get lower. There is no situation where they could continue operating as they do now. See my other comment on the likelihood that any corporation would want to pay for basic science. When would any company choose to fund something that would not guarantee a return on investment? It goes against the nature of the goals of a corporation. I would love to know of for-profit examples of this. I'm sure there are a few, but I doubt there are many.
  - apical_dendrite 1y ago
    Also, most endowment funds are restricted by the donor. The whole point of making a donation to an endowment is to fund a specific thing in perpetuity. Legally, the university can't just take money that was given to them to fund one thing in perpetuity and use that money to fund a completely different thing as a one-time expense.
MisterMower 1y ago
1) Because ROI on that investment is still positive, even if it used to be “free”. 2) Endowments aren’t the only way to fund research, and not all research is equally valuable. Some is probably negative value, given the replication crisis. 3) Investment income from the endowment is taxed at a maximum of 8%. If that’s enough to break the US university research machine, I’m not sure it was ever working in the first place.
- snake42 1y ago
  The cumulative ROI for basic research is positive, but I don't think that is true for many individual research efforts, which is what a company is more likely to support. An individual company seems much less likely to benefit enough from an aggregate pool of research that they will actually contribute. Look at the state of open source software with respect to company investment in maintainers.
- beowulfey 1y ago
  Thanks for your comments. The ROI is not positive because there is no guarantee basic science will lead to any money-making outcome. That's not how basic science works and it is never how it worked, but basic science is absolutely crucial for advancing tech. If you can convince shareholders that it is e.g. worth investigating unusual crystal structures with no intended product in mind then people will gladly share some grants with you to edit so you can work some of that magic. It's just not feasible, no company would pay for that, but sometimes it leads to important discoveries that change the game. And I only mentioned endowments because the parent of my comment did, but again, the important point is that endowments are not intended to entirely fund the research machine, and never will.
  - MisterMower 1y ago
    On the frontiers of knowledge, people furthest out know what problems need to be worked on and what research needs to be done. You don’t need the government blindly throwing darts at the wall hoping that one of them hits a bullseye and calling it “basic science”. I’m open to the idea that government can play a role here, but only in a very small way. The government is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on research. They are such a huge consumer of talent and resources that they are crowding out private initiative. This ain’t Bell Labs of the 1950’s. And if you asked those researchers what they think of today’s system, I’m sure they’d be appalled.

tracker1 1y ago

1) because they're the ones who most benefit from it. Because they still need the research itself, even if someone else isn't paying for it. 2) Harvard has a $54 billion endowment and spends $6.4 billion a year, that doesn't include tuition and fees, that's just what they have in the bank. 3) Actually spending the money is tax deductible and better for the economy.

beowulfey 1y ago
Endowment funds are not a checking account, they are not just cash on hand for universities to spend as they please. They could certainly liquidate, but then each year their disbursement would get lower. There is no situation where they could continue operating as they do now. See my other comment on the likelihood that any corporation would want to pay for basic science. When would any company choose to fund something that would not guarantee a return on investment? It goes against the nature of the goals of a corporation. I would love to know of for-profit examples of this. I'm sure there are a few, but I doubt there are many.
- apical_dendrite 1y ago
  Also, most endowment funds are restricted by the donor. The whole point of making a donation to an endowment is to fund a specific thing in perpetuity. Legally, the university can't just take money that was given to them to fund one thing in perpetuity and use that money to fund a completely different thing as a one-time expense.

MisterMower 1y ago

1) Because ROI on that investment is still positive, even if it used to be “free”. 2) Endowments aren’t the only way to fund research, and not all research is equally valuable. Some is probably negative value, given the replication crisis. 3) Investment income from the endowment is taxed at a maximum of 8%. If that’s enough to break the US university research machine, I’m not sure it was ever working in the first place.

snake42 1y ago
The cumulative ROI for basic research is positive, but I don't think that is true for many individual research efforts, which is what a company is more likely to support. An individual company seems much less likely to benefit enough from an aggregate pool of research that they will actually contribute. Look at the state of open source software with respect to company investment in maintainers.
beowulfey 1y ago
Thanks for your comments. The ROI is not positive because there is no guarantee basic science will lead to any money-making outcome. That's not how basic science works and it is never how it worked, but basic science is absolutely crucial for advancing tech. If you can convince shareholders that it is e.g. worth investigating unusual crystal structures with no intended product in mind then people will gladly share some grants with you to edit so you can work some of that magic. It's just not feasible, no company would pay for that, but sometimes it leads to important discoveries that change the game. And I only mentioned endowments because the parent of my comment did, but again, the important point is that endowments are not intended to entirely fund the research machine, and never will.
- MisterMower 1y ago
  On the frontiers of knowledge, people furthest out know what problems need to be worked on and what research needs to be done. You don’t need the government blindly throwing darts at the wall hoping that one of them hits a bullseye and calling it “basic science”. I’m open to the idea that government can play a role here, but only in a very small way. The government is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on research. They are such a huge consumer of talent and resources that they are crowding out private initiative. This ain’t Bell Labs of the 1950’s. And if you asked those researchers what they think of today’s system, I’m sure they’d be appalled.