This series was inspired by a column by Peter McKnight in the Vancouver Sun newspaper about commercializing scientific research (here). At the time, there was a kerfuffle about Gary Goodyear (Minister of State–Science and Technology) and comments of his which suggested that he does not understand scientific principles of evolution. McKnight’s article posits the commercialization of scientific research as a larger problem for Canadian science than Goodyear’s beliefs about evolution.

The big debate is about how far should we go in commercializing science research. Basic or curiosity-driven research does not hold immediate rewards and yet it forms the basis for applied research. The problem with basic research is that there’s no way of telling what is  going to be fruitful or when. If you’ve ever looked at James Gleick’s book on Chaos, you’ve noticed how weird (at the time) some of the thinking was and how long it took before those weird thoughts coalesced into chaos theory.

As far as I can tell, this debate about commercializing is being carried on internationally. A lot of countries, not just Canada,  are placing more emphasis on commercialized (or applied) research than ever. What I’ve been trying to point out is that commercialization is influencing more than just the funds being given to applied research rather than basic research.

In part of one of this series I mentioned an issue about access when funds are given to a university for research facilities which are also intended as revenue streams. This would seem to set up a competitive situation between the academic scientists trying to do research (basic or otherwise) and local businesses who are willing to pay for the use of the facilities.

As well, there’s the whole question about how grant funds are allocated. The UK project mentioned in part two of this series got its direction through public engagement exercises. Members of the public were instrumental in deciding what types of projects would get funded. As I noted, this could be a problem because the really innovative work is not usually achieved through consensus. This particular approach seems to be confined to the UK bnt if it’s deemed successful, I imagine we’ll see it here too.

Part three is where I pointed out that the government bureaucrats disbursing the grants are not likely to have business or commercialization experience of their own. Yesterday’s brief about the CREATE fund where science students will be getting supported as they develop skills for commercialization of their research pointed to a similar issue with academics. How are you going to learn about commercializing your research from your professor? As far as I know, most academics don’t have any or much experience themselves with commercializing research (well, not yet in Canada).

I didn’t have any grand plan when I started this series but I’ve since discovered that commercialization of science has a more insidious nature than I realized. Having said that, I don’t think commercializing science is bad. I just wish that there was some consideration given to the impact of how this is implemented.