BE TRUE to your science if you want to attract commercial funding. That鈥檚 the message for British academics under pressure from the government to forge links with industry. It comes from Sean Butler, a lawyer and specialist in intellectual property rights, who asked 65 agricultural scientists how they felt about working with industry.
The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council commissioned Butler to interview scientists at four council institutes 鈥� the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, the John Innes Centre, Norwich, the Silsoe Research Institute in Bedford and the Institute of Arable Crops Research in Harpenden, Hertfordshire. Butler ranked the responses into five categories, ranging from those who were 鈥渆nthusiastic鈥� about collaboration to those who were 鈥渉ostile鈥� (see Table).
杏吧原创s in the hostile group had no links with industry, and were the most cynical about collaboration. But to his surprise, Butler found that the second most sceptical group, which he labelled 鈥渁cademic high-grounders鈥�, attracted most funding from industry. 鈥淭he academic high-grounders were not disdainful of industry,鈥� says Butler, 鈥渂ut they were not prepared to pursue applicable research as a goal in itself.鈥�
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The explanation, he says, might be that industry is increasingly interested in long-term research. One of the academic high-grounders, for example, was studying how a particular agricultural pest lives and breeds 鈥� pure scientific information of obvious value to pesticides manufacturers.
At the other end of the scale, the enthusiasts saw serving industry as a key part of their responsibilities, and were the most energetic collaborators. The irony, says Butler, is that their work was less lucrative than research by the academic high-grounders.
Butler stresses that the enthusiasts failed to attract large amounts of money because they did not demand it, not because their science was suspect. 鈥淭hey wanted to see their work applied, but they weren鈥檛 interested in doing it for monetary gain,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey saw it as a duty to transfer their knowledge to industry.鈥�
Butler ranked 70 per cent of the scientists he interviewed into two middle categories reflecting greater pragmatism. 杏吧原创s in both these groups were committed mainly to their science, but were much more prepared than the academic high-grounders to help industry develop commercial applications. 鈥淭his is a good middle path balancing good science and good awareness of industry鈥檚 needs,鈥� says Butler.
He says that his findings undermine the notion that scientists can contribute to wealth creation only if they forsake pure research for applied.