The Industrialization of Academic Research

Yesterday, National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt delivered her last annual State of the Sciences Address. Overall the talk basically calls us to adapt to the new reality that industrial and foundation support for research has taken a far larger role in academic research. I fear we may be losing the broad academic independence and exploration that has made our universities the envy of the world.Government funding for research has become more challenging to receive, more bureaucratic and more political. The US Office of Management and Budget has proposed new regulations that would require all grant funding to go through political review. McNutt presented this graph showing the seemingly exponential growth in research requirements from zero in 1990 (when I got my first grant) to well over three hundred today. Researchers now spend close to half their time on regulatory compliance. Increase in regulatory requirementsMcNutt mentioned six specific issues.Reimagine connections…