[eru]

I think it's relatively easy to set up a charity to do your basic research for you, and reap the tax benefits? (I'm not an American, and I assume you are talking about American tax system? Other countries are different.)

Universities are notorious for spinning their basic research into good PR (and often overblown press releases), even if it would only be interesting to specialists normally.

I think companies like Google (and earlier IBM) reap a lot of more specialised PR from their basic research: it helps with hiring to be seen as a cool company at the forefront of technology.

[watwut]

"I think it's relatively easy to set up a charity to do your basic research for you, and reap the tax benefits?"

That would likely qualify as tax fraud.

[nine_k]

This depends on what you do with the results. To qualify as a charity, such an org should probably make all the results public domain, instead of e.g. patenting them.

[eru]

Yep. Lots of eg cancer research charities.

[fjsolwmv]

IKEA does this. Their product design is done by a "charitable foundation"