Copyright Baton Rouge Advocate
The radical dismantling of government-funded basic research will accelerate the deterioration of universities’ beneficent implementation of the scientific method — the greatest accomplishment of Western civilization. Since World War II, universities have been the go-to source of innovation that was unhindered by intellectual property management. You need it, and it’s already yours because the public paid for it. In recent decades, science has become increasingly hamstrung by the encroachment of industry into university income streams. The Trump administration’s drastic reduction of government grants will make this worse by forcing universities to rely more on technology licensing, start-up income and joint ventures with industry. As universities rush to enhance these activities, they encourage entrepreneurship by providing space, funding and administrative support, and by rewarding faculty with advancement and relief from their traditional duties. Faculty already experience the tension of withholding discoveries for the protection of intellectual property versus publishing discoveries for the benefit of everyone. Intellectual property culture influences faculty choices of research topics. Would studying this help everyone, or would studying this other thing lead to patentable tech? Some would argue that protection of intellectual property is necessary for its commercialization because competition will be too fierce in the development phase. This argument was easier to accept when university tech was developed through patents and licenses. Nowadays, an almost equally common path is through a start-up enterprise, often with direct investment by the university. These activities encourage the profit motive at the expense of public welfare and stretch the capacity of research oversight mechanisms to protect the reliability and reputation of science. Whereas the Trump administration is tearing down basic science research, it should build up basic science research that benefits all people and stimulates nonacademic entrepreneurs to invest in product development, rather than force universities to distract themselves with product development.
