[pergadad]

Not an unusual lobby study. Then they turn around and tell everyone to teach more physics in school and invest in the field/studies. I've seen similar ones for very different professions with similar outcomes. A but unusual to see it for a field of study on its own though, I guess they have a strong lobby somewhere.

[fungicide]

No kidding. CERN takes in public money which it turns into research. It then gifts that research to businesses (frequently owned privately by CERN employees) who then sell products which generate billions in profits. Following the money at CERN is a very complex task, but to the best of my knowledge none of those profits go back to CERN. The gifting of patents seemed like a good thing at the time, but now I think if CERN had a different model, where they kept a small percentage stake in the patents, they would have more than enough cash now to fund themselves and build the next collider, without all this daft lobbying and begging for public money.

[ClumsyPilot]

I have seen this happen at universities too, but I don't take issue with it. They will produce research and tech that is typically available for anyone to use. At this point the options are:

1. Technology transfer to an existing business 2. CERN employee starts a business to commercialise it 3. Nothing useful is done at all

Obviously people that originally worked on this research will have a head start when it comes to commercialising it. Most research never leads to anything commercial (at least not withing a reasonable time-frame)