The case for overhauling American science

旧蓝图与新现实

AS THE SECOND world war drew to a close, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tasked his science adviser, Vannevar Bush, with reorganising America’s scientific enterprise for a post-war order. Bush’s answer, a report entitled “Science: The Endless Frontier”, became the blueprint for American government support of basic science. In turn this led to the creation of the National Science Foundation (NSF), a federal agency that supports fundamental research, and shaped the triumphal attitude to science and technology that defined so much of the “American Century”.

The belief that government should support basic research, that this research can be a foundation of national prosperity and that America can organise its scientific institutions to facilitate that process, remains as true today as when Bush laid out that schema. But I believe Bush would be the first to recognise that the world in which science is conducted has changed dramatically since 1945, leaving the American research system in need of an update.

线性模式的失效

Bush’s managerialism promoted what was later termed the “linear model” of scientific development, in which government funds basic research in universities, and industry turns newly published insights into novel applications. This made sense when government was the primary administrator of fundamental science. But these days an increasing number of scientists do their research in industry, and industry funds an increasing amount of basic science. Over the past two decades the share of private funding dedicated to fundamental research has grown five-fold. Industry self-funds more basic research, to the tune of $37.4bn a year, than the government funds at universities. The 2024 Nobel chemistry prize, for a breakthrough in protein-folding, was largely achieved through industry resources and talent.