Entrepreneurs, Inventors and Knowledge Generators – Can They Co-exist in a Public Research University?

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There is considerable on-going discussion these days of universities being engines of economic development in their communities. Private universities are by design easily tuned to this, but most public research universities have distinctly different missions. Many of the public ones are land-grant, sea-grant or space-grant universities and they have as their primary mission educating the citizenry and going after knowledge that benefit the entire mankind. These were easily maintained during the earlier times when research money was doled out only for the sake of research with no special desire to bring out products that benefit everyone. Even when there was a desire to make research pertinent to society, we followed a “linear” model such as that suggested by Vannevar Bush, where basic research led to applied research which further was scaled-up for large scale applications. This formed the underpinnings of both NSF and NIH models of university research funding. During those times the intellectual property reverted to funding agencies if the principal investigator did not seek patent protections. Of course, since Government was too lethargic in allowing public use of such IP, there was much consternation at the amount of innovations that were not commercialized. The Bayh-Dole Act changed all that when IP rights were transferred to the universities that received funding. This led to the proliferation of Tech Transfer offices at universities.

 Today we see a very different role for public universities that are also research universities. There is the expectation that even though the state support for higher education has declined to about 10-30% of total funds, the university is supposed to carry out research using non-state dollars and get them translated immediately to “products”. This is wholly unrealistic since much of the basic research funding does not immediately translate to any useful product. It may take 10 or more years, in some cases, to realize any benefit from basic research. Moreover for every $2 million spent on research just 1 patent is realizable. Entrepreneurs and inventors have to be on the same page and quite patient as basic inventions go through the “valley of death” before any potential large scale efforts become successful. For this to happen venture capitalists and others should be willing to put up the initial investment that may be risky. Many of the states do not have this engine of economic development in tune with their long term economic development objectives. This mis-match is detrimental to any entrepreneurial business development. Only few states such as Massachusetts, California, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, etc. have created such structures. Others are just imitators with so little capital that this remains a pipe-dream. Yet, most economic development departments tout this as their lofty aim. The return on investment that states expect on their meager higher education spending is totally

There is great truth in the statement that government (via public tax dollars) spending is the primary risk taker in research. Take any major development, e. g., the iPhone and you will see that every major component in it was developed from basic research supported by federal dollars. Indeed major corporations are major benefactors from the public tax-dollar funds that supported university research. This has been the norm since major corporations divested their internal basic research laboratories and in turn started to depend on academic laboratories for major breakthroughs. All that is happening nowadays is that entrepreneurs scan the patent lists to support promising ideas to develop into successful small businesses, which in turn get acquired by large corporations. Thus university research is ever more important in this ecosystem.

In spite of these obvious realities most Tech Transfer offices at universities do not make money; in fact, they lose money. Without sustained support for these offices, the universities are at a disadvantage in concluding successful IP negotiations. Yet, most universities shout from their rooftops that they have easy to work with Tech Transfer operations; only very few have such working offices. It is a shame that industry do not see it important to support universities’ efforts to rework the IP regulations emanating from the federal government. This will positively impact the budding university-industry partnerships. In times of limited funding prospects, such university-industry-government linkages are important to keep our country at the top of the innovation ecosystem. We are the envy of the world when it comes to innovations and we should strive to maintain that superiority as other developing nations play catchup.

University Research Rankings – Are they Manageable?

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Every university that is in the lower rung of research rankings aspires to move further up, but how? Is it realistic to expect that a top-ranked one is willing to be replaced that easily? Not so, in my humble opinion, unless the financial picture is so rosy that research money is fairly and equitably distributed. Currently there is a clear systematic inequality and hierarchy in both research grants and faculty hiring (see Clauset et al, Sci.Adv. 2015;1:e1400005). Most of the efforts are going to take several years and decades to achieve even marginally forwards in rankings; that too, only if a university is strategic in its IMG_1369research priorities and willing to maintain these efforts even with administrative changes that are too frequent. Universities have to look internally first to strategically enhance existing, inherent strengths rather than go after each new area that crops up. Targeted opportunities of cooperation between institutions is the best way to obtain needed resources that might be otherwise unattainable. “Team Science” as it is called is the surest way to overcome these tough times. Foundations and private sources are hard to come by, even though they may be of substantial value. Industrial sector has already divested themselves off basic research and left universities holding that portfolio; they are only willing to enjoy the fruits of that effort and not invest in blue sky research anymore. Having faculty in groups with a good leadership with substantial track records of funding is a tested method, but not realizable at resource-limited small institutions. All these are only possible if the leaderships of universities are wedded to these ideas even when money is tight so that the ultimate goal is never compromised.

Decline in Science funding?

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Recent indicators all point to a substantial decline in public money support for science research. This is counter to all prevalent data on how much basic research has been the basis for most of the modern technological advancements in the late twentieth century. Take the case of the iPhone which would never have been possible had it not been for defense and civilian funding of most basic components in the iPhone. There has been a very skewed attempt by private entrepreneurs to claim that they take all the risks while public funders do not. Quite the contrary, privates have never tolerated much risks in basic research. The public funds have fostered all of that risk taking mentality. In spite of this, public funds for basic research are declining. No one would have seen the modern developments blossom if it were left to just the profiteers to fund basic research. It never has happened in all of human history. I challenge folks to think carefully about our modern day politicians pronouncements that only applied and not basic research has to be fostered within limited budgets.

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Drops make an ocean!

Industry Disinvestment in Basic Research

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During the early part of the 20th century a number of well-known industry stalwarts had huge investments in “basic” research within their corporate research portfolio. Examples are Xerox, AT&T, DuPont, Eastman Kodak etc. This led to handsome rewards towards their “applied” research as well, and many Nobel laureates and novel ideas originated there. However, the current trend is a total disinvestment in “basic” research at the expense of “applied” research within the industry. Not only has this made the United Staes less competitive, but also during these lean economic times the reliance on the Universities to carry out this burden has provided unique challenges to the academic community. Short-sighted, bottom-line mentality will make the US industries less innovative and increasingly cede their advantages to foreign competitors. I would like to make the point that this is a disturbing trend and more reflective conversations among the industry, government and academic communities are necessary to reverse this trend.

Future Classrooms With No Teachers?

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There is much being made of modern day classrooms and lecture styles. In particular, massively open on-line courses (MOOCs) are gaining popularity at many institutions worldwide. Traditional classroom instruction involves direct face-to-face interactions between a student and a teacher. Logical thinking, creative activities and hands-on training are emphasized in classroom lectures. Practical training is the hallmark of such traditional education. Replacing this with MOOCs will eliminate the requisite interactive learning environment for most students. Few, if any, will be able to learn of their own volition. There is much from thousands of year old ancient teaching techniques (e.g., the Gurukula system of ancient India, Greek traditions of inductive and deductive learning, Chinese and Buddhist methods) that emphasize the teacher-to-student knowledge transfer via face-to-face interactive learning. Such learning techniques are well proven and effective. MOOCs will not be able to effectively supplant such well-honed methodologies via impersonal learning techniques. However, MOOCs is an effective way to reach a wide variety of students within a short period of time. Indeed it is the extraordinary cost of traditional education that is deriving the MOOC revolution. If, however, the desire to make profits is taken out of the evolving MOOCs learning environment, this might be considered a weak alternative to traditional learning. I welcome comments on this.

 

 

Is the current scientific peer-review system broken?

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Comic on the quality of different methods of p...
Comic on the quality of different methods of peer review (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Peer review is a essential part of the self-policing of scientific research. It involves uncompensated, voluntary, blind-review of one another’s work. However, as it is practiced now most of it is one in which the author is known, but the reviewer remains anonymous. In the absence of any better method of review, this remains the underpinning of most of our current scientific peer-review. Critiquing the methodology and conclusions and improving the overall quality of science is paramount to maintaining standards for publications and discussion.  Science is essentially a mechanisms of self-correction wherein hypothesis and theory are supplanted with new or corrected versions and, hence incrementally improving the enterprise. The vast exponential increase in journals, especially the “open access” variety has necessarily placed the veracity of peer-review in question.  Most traditional journals have established procedures for anonymous peer-review and does not have the desire to charge fees for manuscript submission. Thus, they are free to reject manuscripts in favor or maintaining quality journals. However, open access journals work on the premise that authors should pay for the open access service that they provide and hence they have less of a desire to reject manuscripts.  At the same time it is not clear from  the data thus far that there is a substantial lack of rigor for the “open access” variety. Thus, the very allegation that the current system is broken seems a little bit too premature.  I would advise one to wait for another decade or more so that the “open access” journals go through the maturation process and then see if there is a difference. I would go so far as to say that in time the “open access” journals would set up practices to weed out unreliable and unscrupulous ones from their herd.  Indeed this proliferation of open access journals would be a great competition to the traditional journals (except for association journals) that also work towards profit making.

Panaceae of University Research and Tech Transfer

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Business entities have latched on to an unrealistic expectation that all research at universities should lead to a tech transfer initiative at the end. Far from it, no less than 2 patents are usually realizable for every $100 million spent on research in university labs according to the Association for University Technology Managers (AUTM) data.  No less than 10% of all research anywhere (industry or academia) usually lead to an immediately transferable product to the market place. Most basic research is geared towards “knowledge expansion” and few move to applied research before a realizable product or process results. Businesses seem to be so enamored by a few success stories such as Gatorade, pharmaceutical discoveries that generally produce vast royalty income for universities.  This is a rarity and somewhat fortuitous in many circumstances. Short-sighted businessmen with selfish objectives of making vast profits repeat the mantra that university intellectual property (IP) protocols are too cumbersome and hence commercialization is sluggish. Many of these same folks believe (mistakenly) that university professors are “public” servants doing “publicly-funded” research and hence, businesses have the right to cash-in on their research.  They do not realize that state-funded institutions being used for research do not provide businesses a cart-blanch to claim public research output for themselves.  That belongs to the university and the faculty who generated them. Businesses should adequately compensate university before they license the technology.  This should not occur on business’ terms, but on university terms and that is a major disconnect.  So those who complain of intransigence on the part of a public state-funded university working under State rules should first look inwards at their selfish motives and see why barriers arise in tech transfer. Ideas that are being floated such as research foundations, corporations, collaborative, 501c(3) organizations etc., to facilitate tech transfer are only meant to circumvent State laws and will not provide any public good for those who put up the money in the first place.Featured image

The Anthropocene?

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The Earth seen from Apollo 17.
The Earth seen from Apollo 17. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Human influence on our environment is recognized as changing the conditions that keep Earth hospitable. All environmental media (atmosphere, water, soil, sediment and all biota) are having to adapt to human influences. Although disputable this has been occurring for over 10,000 years and is appropriately named the “anthropocene”. How do we adapt in order to accommodate these effects that only took a few thousand years what Nature would have taken millions of years to accomplish is a good question for all of humanity. The adaptation time that we have given ourselves and all biota is so short that we may not have nature help us in the accommodation process. These changes are not entirely irreversible, and indeed nature will adapt in time, but not us humans. Our large scale experiment may doom us to our extinction before we can adapt and change. No other species has managed to exploit the resources so fast and with such greed that have put ourselves and all other species at risk.  But then resiliency is the hallmark of all life forms.  Thus, we may find ourselves out of the picture but a successor species may be more adaptable.  In that case, “anthropocene” is only a blip in the earth’s existence.

As a scientist, an environmental one at that, I find my job more and more as an effort at pointing out the effects of callous human greed that pays scant respect to others who co-habit with us, but yet have no voice in how we are influencing the environment. Human emphasis on the so-called economic well-being is nothing but a smokescreen for the short term gains that a select few of us want to enjoy. Thus, modern day industrialists need to take heed of what scientists have long been warning, viz., the impending catastrophe of global climate change. If not the anthropocene will be the final frontier for us humans on earth.

Is Chemistry the Fundamental Science?

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Portrait of Monsieur de Lavoisier and his Wife...
Portrait of Monsieur de Lavoisier and his Wife, chemist Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is often noted that when we say basic science it mostly connotes physics and mathematics. Biology and chemistry are often not considered “basic” enough. In particular chemistry has long suffered the moniker of “impure science”; this is a result of its unfortunate connection to alchemy in ancient times. Interestingly mankind’s first foray into actual science was via the activities of cooking. Well, that is pure chemistry. No one knew of atoms or fundamental particles then and yet folks experimented a great deal in this ancient art of “cookery”. Indeed, then chemistry is the fundamental science even predating mathematics and physics. It may be argued that its diversion into the hands of alchemists gave it the reputation of shaky foundations often bordering on magic and trickery. Even Newton was a closet alchemist. Only late 18th and 19th century pioneers such as Lavoisier, Boyle, Thompson, and Priestly put it on sound foundations. 20th century has really taken chemistry into the realm of biology, physiology and medicine. So now even the basic elements of Life is cast in terms of chemical principles. Thus, everything that mankind depends on now rests on the foundational science we call chemistry.

“Laboratory” is an isolated place for labor and first used by alchemists, later by chemists and only in the 17th century did other disciplines use laboratories for their work.  Chemistry cannot be learned just by reading books; it is a practical discipline and needs “apprenticeship” as practiced by most modern chemists. It has its epistemological originality in that “theory” is not what drives it. So chemistry has its unwanted reputation as an “empirical” science and not an “exact” science. Since chemical knowledge is learned by experience, it is personal and not impersonal as other branches of science, notably physics and mathematics.

Chemistry became a “mature” science in the 18th century at the hands of folks like Lavoisier who said, “…..as chemistry advances towards perfection, by dividing and subdividing, it is impossible to say where it is to end”. As many citizen scientists gradually became modern chemists, the whole of science was re-organized in the 19th century.  Thus, began the golden age of chemistry which regained its status as a “fundamental” science by the late 20th century. So fundamental is it that Mendeleev created his periodic table of elements even when much of “fundamental” physics was being constructed.

Higher education’s current plight

On By ktvalsaraj1 Comment

The recent threat from State legislatures cutting higher education appropriations and consistently divesting from investments in the education of their constituents is a self-defeating exercise. Very soon our country will be lagging behind most of the developing nations in the number and quality of students trained in the STEM areas that are critical to maintaining a vibrant economy.

The continuing rollbacks and cuts to State funding of higher education across many states is a stark reminder of how much we are yet to demonstrate to the legislators the overall “relevance” of higher education to the economic and social development of the state. It behooves us as educators to “educate” our legislators about the long term benefits of reliable funding for higher education even in the face of economic uncertainties. It is not enough that we get a cursory hearing from those in power to legislate, but it is important for us to explain in the briefest and clearest terms (i.e., the politicians have such small attention span) how the return on investments now will pay off handsomely in the future.  Indeed, we have to show them how their constituents will be indebted to them for their foresight and wisdom!

To a large extent some of the modern day politicians who cal themselves fiscally conservative have also a bias against the intelligentsia. The frequent fights over controversial issues such as stem cell funding,  teaching of evolution, global climate change and many others have hardened these so-called conservatives towards the entire intelligentsia which is often accused of leftward bias. We have to remind these politicians that a university is where all points of view are entertained and debates encouraged. We have to be able to convince them that in a democracy such a frank exchange of views is necessary to keep a liberal democracy in place. Rather than opposing the agenda of these fiscal hawks, one has to prevail upon them and change their perceptions of the modern day university system. The same folks also understand perfectly the importance of economic development which is the easiest way to convince them of supporting higher education.