[News] Science Research Commercialisation Push is Disastrous

[Michaelangelica]

Science inputs, outputs and outcomes cannot be measured or predicted over short periods and to do it, as modern accounting requires, in 12-monthly increments is nonsense.

 

Science timeframes are long (5–10 years minimum), and science builds over time on prior results while rejecting others. It cannot be known a priori which pieces will ultimately become useful and which will lead to “dead ends”. The financial benefit of a piece of research is impossible to define in the short term.

 

Yet this is the accounting andmanagement straitjacket now imposed on modern science. Scientists are intelligent and most, sensing the charade, feel undervalued in the current system. The net result is negative as transaction costs (overheads) increase and themorale and public standing of scientists is reduced.

 

For example, AgResearch conducts research to develop pasture cultivars, but the same scientists are used by seed merchants to promote specific cultivars. How does the public know when they are speaking as salesmen for the company or as objective impartial scientists undertaking public good research?

Commercialisation Push is Disastrous(ScienceAlert)

Dr Doug Edmeades is Managing Director of agKnowledge Ltd in Hamilton, NewZealand.

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