In 1942, I started graduate work in Organic Chemistry at Cornell University. I was also a Teaching Assistant in the Gas and Fuel Laboratory. Free tuition. After about a year, I switched to a fellowship supported by Merrill, a pharmaceutical company. I prepared various compounds of the benzothiazole series for testing as antimalarials. Again, free tuition.
In the subsequent 70 years, the financial situation of academic research is radically different. With the growth of government, essentially all academic research is now supported by government grants as opposed to private companies and foundations. The basis of this change is that voters do not pay attention to how their money is spent, while corporate managers are considerably more astute in obtaining value for their expenditures.
It now appears that something "new" has been discovered. In the September 3 issue of Chemical and Engineering News, Rick Mullin reports that the Temple University School of Pharmacy is trying to break the developed system of government/University research by injecting private industry. We wish good luck to Temple, but as stated previously as long as the system allows the injection of public money into University research, there is little likelihood that private industry with its more rigid financial standards would have a chance to break the 70-year-old system.
The only possibility is that voters could possibly wake up to being more concerned about how their money is being spent and perhaps make some radical changes in government grants. We will see how the next election develops.
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