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by jlcx
4855 days ago
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Some private organizations have very deep pockets, and it's not just industry, as non-profits can also fund research. But if industry is biased toward applied/translational research, perhaps it's not just a focus on short-term profitability or a lack of funds for large projects. One interesting idea is that patent laws are partially responsible for this bias, because they grant a temporary monopoly on inventions/applications, but not on basic science. |
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They can, but the reality is very few are really prepared to do a good job of it and even fewer have the resources to really fund the portfolios relevant to them in the same way other institutions (gov, some large corps, etc) do.
The non-profit sector has a bunch of hard working folks with great goals and there's a bunch of good uses for them to put money toward, but frankly I'm not sure R&D is the one that makes the best impact. I think if a non-profit is going to fund R&D they need to be really really smart, innovative and/or creative to make their money get the type of impact they could get on spending it in critical areas outside of R&D.
This changes depending on the field though. In some areas of the arts and humanities, non-profit funding is a huge and valuable source of funding.
But in tech/sci/eng? Not so much.