Thousands of British academics, including six Nobel laureates, have signed a petition opposing a proposal that would require 25 percent of government-financed academic research to be assessed on its societal and economic impact. Protesters carrying a giant poster of Albert Einstein also marched on Parliament on Wednesday in a demonstration organized by Britain’s main faculty union. Opponents of the proposal, first aired in September, say the measure would hinder the kind of blue-sky research that has been at the heart of many scientific and technological advances.
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2 Responses to British Professors Protest Plan to Promote Socially Useful Research
piske109 - December 17, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Well on the one hand, if the government is funding the research, why shouldn’t they have quotas? But really, this is the dangerous side of socialism. Trying to plan a specific end instead of simply having researchers start at the same line and seeing where they end up. I’m glad to see the Brit academy standing up to this. Hopefully this government doesn’t win in its attempt to stomp out freedom.
reinking - December 17, 2009 at 6:58 pm
As Donald Stokes (in his book Pasteur’s Quadrant) and others have pointed out, it is a myth that basic research has been the bedrock of scientific advancement. Scientific advancement has more often been achieved through scientists addressing real problems (Pasteur was looking for ways to preserve food; consider also that there was no field of aerodynamics before the Wright brothers). I don’t think legislation is the way to promote and reinforce that historical reality, but it is an understandable response when many of those involved in research cling to myth in defense of their often esoteric, but largely irrelevant, research.