[pfannkuchen]

I don’t really understand why so much of science is funded by the government instead of by private philanthropy. It seems like an obvious channel for corruption of science. Sure private donors have interest driven motives too but it would be diffuse across many areas not concentrated like a political party’s interests.

[827a]

The biggest reason is because we have a strategic multinational interest in remaining a leader in science. China (and other countries) will fund science. We have to as well, or we fall behind. Its national security.

We also have a strategic interest in draining intelligent individuals from other countries and nationalizing them in ours, which science funding plays a major part in doing.

One of the reasons why its complicated, however, is that the University environment has changed significantly in the US. What used to be academically-motivated institutions dedicated to the pursuit of education are now, essentially, just boring businesses, with more middle managers than educators. As one example, UCLA has a $9.8B endowment. Their athletics programs brought in $120M last year (though, they spent more, and the university itself had to provide gap funding of $30M. yup.) IPAM was receiving $5M/year in NSF funding (DMS-1925919). One obviously extreme way of looking at this: UCLA could have funded Terrance Tao's mathematics research group for six years with the money they used to save a hundred million dollar athletics program that's somehow still losing money.

This is a priorities issue for universities, through and through. But, Universities have slowly evolved their priorities to bloat their managerial class, which has forced them into impossible financial situations where the only way out is to bias investment into revenue generating verticals like maximizing the size of the student body at any cost on the backs of no-default student loans, international students, and athletics programs. Research takes a back seat.

I am all for public funding of science, but even many university researchers would argue, as a part of the system, that its broken (for reasons which extend even beyond those I've brought up). That's why I struggle to take a solid side on this issue; I want science, but what I want more is a University system that actually takes education and research seriously.

[derbOac]

The current system is broken but nothing about this administration is aimed at helping fix its problems.

With most actions, there's nothing being remedied, just an assertion of control. The action isn't tied to an improvement goal or a remedy with rationale.

As Tao noted, in cases where a remedy for a wrong is mentioned, the remedies being proposed by the administration do far more harm to any ostensible victims than the original asserted wrongs.

Nothing about their actions is in good faith in terms of improving academics in the US, nor do they even try in most cases to pretend to be trying to improve academics at all.

[827a]

I agree that there is no reason to believe the current administration has any priority in fixing the situation, and its definitely reasonable to state that they're operating in bad faith, and that we have much bigger problems than this situation. However; continuing to pump taxpayer dollars and debt into an already enriched, broken system like this is on some level negligence.

UCLA paid their head football coach ~$6M/year. Will they ever decide to take any kind of money of that scale and fund Tao's research at IPAM? The reason you'll hear is "its ROI, a great football program generates revenue for the university" but the reality is: like 70% of University athletics programs are unprofitable, including UCLA's football program. Moreover: while I understand that universities have to operate like a business, their business goal must be "to make as much awesome education and research happen"; everything must serve that goal, and it doesn't today. I am extremely unconvinced that hyper-sized athletics programs and millionaire coaches further this goal, especially against the backdrop that they're tremendously and systemically unprofitable for everyone except the coaches, management, and the NCAA.

[mnky9800n]

It’s also that most r1 university budgets single largest contributor is grant overhead which is the approximate 50% of the grant you win is given to the university. But the people who write and win these grants have little say over how this money is spent. Also because universities are impervious to reorganising there is a lot of extra weight within departments as well.

[827a]

The Trump administration has actually passed an order to limit this to 15% of the grant value. But, the point stands.

[1] https://www.nsf.gov/policies/document/indirect-cost-rate

[AdieuToLogic]

> I don’t really understand why so much of science is funded by the government instead of by private philanthropy.

Two reasons.

First, private philanthropy is neither sustainable nor sufficient in scope.

Second, because government funded science is free from having to produce immediate results in order to satisfy the whims of a specific patron such that funding is continued.

> It seems like an obvious channel for corruption of science.

Yes, relying on private entities to fund scientific research does seem like an obvious channel for corruption.

[derbOac]

> Second, because government funded science is free from having to produce immediate results in order to satisfy the whims of a specific patron such that funding is continued.

I agree with you but there's irony (and a possible lesson about motives) in the current situation.

[rjbwork]

Well, hundreds of elected representatives and a handful of judges have had to entirely abdicate their responsibility and power for us to arrive at this point. It's not just one guy.

[derbOac]

Sadly true and the real mystery for me.

The problem and paradox is that it's hundreds of elected representatives and a handful of judges entirely abdicating their responsibility to make it just one guy.

[AdieuToLogic]

>> Second, because government funded science is free from having to produce immediate results in order to satisfy the whims of a specific patron such that funding is continued.

> I agree with you but there's irony (and a possible lesson about motives) in the current situation.

Quite true, sadly.

I am reminded of an old adage[0]:

  In theory there is no difference between theory and
  practice, while in practice there is.

0 - https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/04/14/theory/

[ajkjk]

"why would the government pay for things that benefit the people that they govern and which those people elected them do?" what do you want a government to do?

[ajkjk]

*to do

[energy123]

Neoclassical economics has an answer!

The market can't provide public goods like basic research since it's non-excludable. This is a market failure, causing inefficient allocation of resources.

Therefore, the government has to provide it. This can improve efficiency of resource distribution, if done well.

Whether it's done well is not a foregone conclusion. That's why we need effective and technocratic state capacity, free from corruption and independent of political influence.

[mnky9800n]

I don’t feel like what you said provided an answer.

[dotancohen]

  > I don’t really understand why so much of science is funded by the government instead of by private philanthropy.

The two are not orthodontal, it is not "instead". Why does the government fund science? To keep the nation ahead of its rivals. Why doesn't philanthropy fund science? Actually, it does. How much more philanthropy would you like? And from whom?

[jghn]

Because basic science is the sort of thing that no one funds, yet winds up being very useful at the applied science phase that people do fund. So it's useful as a community to fund basic science as it leads to really cool applied science where people can start turning profits

[kevinventullo]

Is anything stopping private philanthropy from funding science today? Generally speaking it is in the government’s interest to support fundamental scientific research.

[pfannkuchen]

I’m not aware of anything stopping it except for perhaps how the system is set up.

Like if I want to fund a pet study that I’m interested in, can I just call up Harvard and offer the lab $1M to work on it? I’ve never heard of anyone doing that, but I’m not really sure why it doesn’t exist (which is why I’m asking if anyone else knows).

[porcoda]

That does happen: foundations will fund specific research and universities apply and get it. What is often different is that foundations rarely put out open calls outside the areas the foundation is specifically interested in. That is where government funding tends to be better: covers many more areas than foundations tend to be interested in. There’s nothing stopping foundations from doing that, but I haven’t seen it very often other than a couple calls here and there. I’ve been a researcher chasing money for decades: I’d love it if foundations would fill this role, but alas, they don’t so far. Plus, the scale doesn’t match: if you added up all the private funding that is available, it’s tiny compared to the federal science budgets.

[jghn]

> That does happen: foundations will fund specific research and universities apply and get it

For instance, the Chan Zuckerberg Institute before Zuck decided he had to appear to hate science in order to curry favor with the current regime.

[ekr____]

More or less. Corporations fund research all the time. Just to pick a random example, check out the acknowledgements on this paper: https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/132

"This work was funded in part by NSF Award CNS-2054869 and gifts from Apple, Capital One, Facebook, Google, and Mozilla."

That said, private grant funding is just of a completely different scale than government grant funding. For example, NIH's annual budget is 48 billion and most of that goes to research (https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/organization/budget).

[warkdarrior]

Give Harvard's Office for Sponsored Programs a call and tell them you are ready to award $1M. It really helps if you already have a lab or PI in mind.

   Office for Sponsored Programs
   1033 Massachusetts Avenue
   5th Floor
   Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
   617-495-5501
   [e-mail]

[ckemere]

If there’s a specific researcher you want to fund, you can absolutely call them up. There will be paperwork around IP, independence, etc.

If you want them to do a specific experiment you’ll likely first need to convince them that it’s a good use of their time.

Harvard itself plays approximately zero role in the decision to do a study or not. (There are ethical oversight committees, etc.)

$1M total cost ($600-800k direct cost depending on terms) will buy you a postdoc’s time and effort for 5 years. Unfortunately most labs aren’t set up for a time/money tradeoff, so 5 postdocs for 1 year would be unlikely absent a really exciting project.

It definitely happens quite a bit!

[dragonwriter]

Yes, the interests of private donors. Private philanthropy mostly feeds what private donors are interests in (weighted, of course, by having money to give, so for all intents and purposes, it goes where the interests of the superwealthy are.)

And those tend to be: things that are perceived by the donor as having high immediate returns, things that are perceived by the public as having high immediate returns and thus are good for buying status, and things that provide a convenient channel for the donor to exercise power via the donation, making it away to enjoy wealth while also getting a tax break for it.

Basic science doesn't tend to fit any of those, which is why science funded by private philanthropy is small compared either to government funding of basic science or total private philanthropy.

[jjk166]

The same reason bridges and aircraft carriers and public schools aren't funded by private philanthropy. Why am I paying taxes if not to fund things done for the public interest?

[stevenwoo]

There's a half hour explanation of how the government funding of science research became a thing in the USA. https://www.npr.org/2025/05/28/1253247256/-higher-education-...

[teaearlgraycold]

Private philanthropy doesn't feel like it's free from corruption.

[dotancohen]

Recent events related to the Qatari funding make this poignant.

[toomuchtodo]

Because hope is not a strategy.

[ulfw]

Because imagine just for the sake of discussion (I am well aware this is not possible. Just trying to make an extreme point. You could pick HIV or MS or Parking's or any other incurable disease) there was a magic pill that could cure cancer. You take it once a day for a week and any cancer is gone. Doesn't matter which cancer. All of them, gone for good. Magical!

Would would ANY private enterprise (i.e. pharmaceutical company) want to fund research that would enable that?

The immense money (the US spends over $200B a year in cancer 'treatments') that these companies would not be making anymore would deter any such research.

Same goes for many other scientific discoveries. Some are for the greater humanitarian good, not for private enterprise profit maximisation.

[FredPret]

All companies are not one giant entity. Even when they illegally collude, they're holding onto their knives and keeping a keen eye on one another's backs.

Of course any company would take this deal and make a boatload of money (though less than the $200B / year).

Undercutting all its competitors would be a bonus, not a deterrent.

This has happened so many times throughout history. New tech comes in, does the same thing cheaper and better, old companies die out kicking and screaming.

[panarchy]

What biased incentives does a government have that isn't even worse than a corporation or an individual who has large sway in corporation? How exactly would Dow Chemical funding research for understanding cancer effects on chemicals they produce not be extremely biased? Why would other rich people who are friends of the CEO of Dow fund that research? How exactly would a private donor fund something like the Apollo missions? Why would they bother when they could just reinvest their money to make more money? These billionaires could be donating billions right now and in large they aren't.

[esseph]

Because not all science that needs to be done is profitable.

Companies and their shareholders only do things that are profitable.