On Tue, 16 Jul 2002, Oron Peled wrote: > On Tue, 16 Jul 2002 05:40:29 +0300 (EET DST) > Uri Bruck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Salk developed the vaccine for polio while working for a university. He > > worked for a salary. The project was a joint project of several > > universities, and obviously had funding. As for giving away the vaccine, > > Which just shows there are alternative models to fund scientific discovery. > The basic division used to be:
I don't know enough about medical research to state with such confidence that the same kind of models that worked a few decaeds ago are viable today. > * Academy: does basic research, is funded by public (taxes) and the > results are published and available to the public. In the US some academic research is funded by industry. > * Industry: Implements what looks promising and fund development > by reaping the results of implementation. > > The problem now is that every day the situation is more like: > * Academy: still funded by public (taxes) and grants, but the results > are sold to the Industry to get more money. > * Industry: hold monopoly "rights" both to the implementation and > to the ideas. > > This new model has several flaws: > 1. The public pays double price. Both to keep the academic system in place > and than to buy the fruits of its research. > 2. More importantly, as academic institutions are striving to make more money > by selling their discoveries, they behave more like R&D departments > of the industry. This is bad because the industry has (and should have) > short term goals (to bring money in, to satisfy investors). > If these criteria infiltrate the academic system (which is already happening) > who will search in those long-term-and-not-so-promising directions? > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > Oron Peled Voice/Fax: +972-4-8228492 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.actcom.co.il/~oron > > Linux: If you're not careful, you might actually learn something. > -- Allen Wong > -- Thanks, Uri http://translation.israel.net ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
