"How Scientific Gains Abroad Pay Off in the U.S.

The New York Times published this story by G. PASCAL ZACHARY on April 20, 2008. Fundamental research is funded by governments because the business sector will underinvest in fundamental research if left alone because the likely commercial returns to the company doing the research don't justify the risk to those firms. Indeed, laws have been changed in the United States to allow the firms in an industry to jointly fund "pre-competitive" research and development -- that is R&D that will benefit the whole industry but which would not provide an individual firm with sufficient competitive advantage to justify its independent investment in that R&D.

Fundamental knowledge gets published, and is out there for the first entrepreneur who can put it to work. Often it remains unused until other, complementary knowledge is developed which allows its use, or is never found to be commercially useful.

So the author is quite right in stating that the increase in basic scientific knowledge coming from increased investments in S&T in Asia (and indeed in Europe) may benefit the United States greatly if our entrepreneurs are sufficiently on the job to be the first to commercialize the technology and gain a commercial edge. Indeed, American consumers may benefit significantly from the commercial application of scientific knowledge, even when that knowledge is first commercialized in another country. Lots of Americans have benefited from drugs developed in Europe.

The argument for the United States government funding basic research here in this country is properly based on the need for "gatekeepers" who understand the knowledge landscape and who can recommend commercial applications, and a responsibility of the rich to pay their fair share of the production of knowledge as a public good and as something valued for itself by the citizens. The Bush administration seems to misunderstand this fact, seemingly believing that investing in university R&D via the National Science Foundation will in itself generate commercial advantage.