I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. I, for one, was funded for one and a half years by a corporation to continue research started by one of their "visiting researchers". The original stipend was for three years, enough for me to try to finish my PhD. However, when the results did not flow like milk and honey, the money was cut. This company, like others I have seen at my university and within my department, expect results, and quickly. They are not concerned with finding out why something works, only that it does. This philosophy is entirely opposite to the academic approach which is normally that of "find out why it works and then we can apply it". Industry typically wants you to "make it work, figure out why later, if we let you".
Now, as to why a corporation, or a university for that matter, would want to do such a thing? Simple: grad students cost under $17,000/year, while a PhD in their company would run them $75,000 to do the same stuff. For companies, it is slave labor. For universities, it is easy money.
However, the downside to this quaint little arrangement is that the fundamental research going on in university settings has begun to, and will continue to, go away from academic fundamental knowledge, and stray to "getting it to work". This causes dissention between both parties when they try to work together. Their goals are completely different. Universitites are supposed to teach you how to research, but the companies want you to be a technician and simply run intrumentation.
Also, as was stated in the article, many companies force you to wait for a while until you can publish. This is complete mania. The reason: "we don't want the competition seeing what we are doing until we know we can do it all the way and fully". Forget sharing knowledge to make the world a better place. We want to make money. Personallly, I had to wait 6 months just to publish rudimentary findings that would not compromise the company, but would let others researching know what was fundamentally happening in this field (instead of empirical knowledge, they would have a more detailed picture, full of actualy reasons instead of observed phenomenon). Six months of slowed progress.
But what is to be done? Nothing. For now, companies have to pour money into the universities, because as a whole, the government cannot fully support the universities to make them a haven for individual thought and the pursuit of knowledge (sometimes just for knowledge's sake). Until the companies lose this paranoia and fear of money loss (which is not entirely unhealthy, but in this case just plain bad), we will not see the end of their conrolling the research that they fund. I would like to see these companies give funding and use it as a tax break rather than hound its grad student slaves for results to "get their money's worth" (let's see how many times does 17,000 go into 75,000...4.5 times...hmmm).
But again, the precedent has been set, there is no turning back. Grab the remaining government grants folks! Get them while they are hot! You will soon be under the big thumb of the industrial giant, no need to be there 4-6 years sooner.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. I, for one, was funded for one and a half years by a corporation to continue research started by one of their "visiting researchers". The original stipend was for three years, enough for me to try to finish my PhD. However, when the results did not flow like milk and honey, the money was cut. This company, like others I have seen at my university and within my department, expect results, and quickly. They are not concerned with finding out why something works, only that it does. This philosophy is entirely opposite to the academic approach which is normally that of "find out why it works and then we can apply it". Industry typically wants you to "make it work, figure out why later, if we let you". Now, as to why a corporation, or a university for that matter, would want to do such a thing? Simple: grad students cost under $17,000/year, while a PhD in their company would run them $75,000 to do the same stuff. For companies, it is slave labor. For universities, it is easy money. However, the downside to this quaint little arrangement is that the fundamental research going on in university settings has begun to, and will continue to, go away from academic fundamental knowledge, and stray to "getting it to work". This causes dissention between both parties when they try to work together. Their goals are completely different. Universitites are supposed to teach you how to research, but the companies want you to be a technician and simply run intrumentation. Also, as was stated in the article, many companies force you to wait for a while until you can publish. This is complete mania. The reason: "we don't want the competition seeing what we are doing until we know we can do it all the way and fully". Forget sharing knowledge to make the world a better place. We want to make money. Personallly, I had to wait 6 months just to publish rudimentary findings that would not compromise the company, but would let others researching know what was fundamentally happening in this field (instead of empirical knowledge, they would have a more detailed picture, full of actualy reasons instead of observed phenomenon). Six months of slowed progress. But what is to be done? Nothing. For now, companies have to pour money into the universities, because as a whole, the government cannot fully support the universities to make them a haven for individual thought and the pursuit of knowledge (sometimes just for knowledge's sake). Until the companies lose this paranoia and fear of money loss (which is not entirely unhealthy, but in this case just plain bad), we will not see the end of their conrolling the research that they fund. I would like to see these companies give funding and use it as a tax break rather than hound its grad student slaves for results to "get their money's worth" (let's see how many times does 17,000 go into 75,000...4.5 times...hmmm). But again, the precedent has been set, there is no turning back. Grab the remaining government grants folks! Get them while they are hot! You will soon be under the big thumb of the industrial giant, no need to be there 4-6 years sooner.