Basic and applied research: a cricketing perspective
The debate between test cricket and the shorter forms of the game is similar to the structural changes in the research landscape. This piece was in response to the prevalent view in 2009 that applied research was somehow being preferred over basic research in Australia.
First published in Campus Review, p. 29.
Access on QUT eprints.
The expansion of the Linkage Projects scheme explains the increased percentage of CIs undertaking Linkage research, but the intriguing statistic is the increase in CIs holding both Discovery and Linkage from 10.8 per cent to 14.4 per cent. Of course, this is not yet a definitive trend, but it is one worth watching.
It helps to look at some changes in the global research landscape that could explain these developments. Over the past two decades, many large corporate labs that were for the most part funded by monopolies have disappeared. Those that survive (like Bell Labs and IBM Research) are either a shadow of their former selves, or are focused on their immediate products and services. These corporate labs undertook large-scale, use-inspired basic research in physics, chemistry, mathematics, engineering and computing. Many researchers from these industrial labs found new homes in universities, and they brought with them an enhanced end-user focus to the academy. Of course, there was also the movement of academic talent to new “transient near monopolies”, such as Microsoft and Google.
The dismantling of corporate research labs also paralleled a move to open innovation, where companies increasingly began to source intellectual property from academia and start-ups (often with origins in academia) as an alternative to undertaking research in-house. This phenomenon gathered momentum during the dot-com boom, where companies like Cisco made an art form of sourcing innovation externally. While this practice initially made headlines in the ICT space, today it is commonplace in the life sciences—often fuelled by venture capital—and is beginning to take hold in the clean energy space as well. This has also created new incentives for entrepreneurial researchers in academia to align their research activities with the needs of potential end users. Such research teams are finding that it helps to not stop at basic research, but to continue developing their ideas to maximise their attractiveness to the market. Universities have also started celebrating these research teams, and this is beginning to create an alternative value system in academia that favours more end-user driven research.
These are fundamental shifts, and even if governments were to provide increased resources for basic research, the research undertaken is likely to have an end-user flavour. One only has to look at the topics of ARC Discovery Grants today and see how some of them appear more like topics of the SPIRT grants of a decade ago. Any increase in public funding for basic research— long overdue, and most welcome—is likely to be overshadowed by even greater funding to address pressing problems of climate change and an ageing population — subjects that are likely to increase even more end-user driven research.
In the Australian context, there may be an additional reason for an increased level of applied research. It has been widely remarked that Australia produces only a tiny fraction of global research output, but its economy still needs to draw on the vast amounts of research that originates from elsewhere. However, Australia’s unique geography and climate may require some of this research—possibly inspired by North American or European conditions—to be adapted to the Australian context, thereby creating additional scope for applied work.
Furthermore, if one agrees with the view that universities undertake research to inform teaching and learning, then the question of appropriate mix is perhaps more appropriate at a discipline level. Professional disciplines such as business, law and architecture account for a significant proportion of enrolment in Australian universities. While no one would deny the importance of studying the philosophical underpinnings of jurisprudence, research inspired by professional legal practice is likely to be more relevant to students and to the ongoing innovation in our legal system. It can be argued that, for these professional disciplines, the more relevant research is practice-led and issues of basic and applied are secondary. Recent backlash in the US against the perceived preoccupation of business schools with “academic” research is a case in point.
Finally, back to cricket. While the debate between test cricket and shorter forms of the game continues, some of the most skilled players are excelling in all three forms. The shorter versions of the game are influencing test cricket in ways that had never before been imagined. One can’t help but remark on how this debate is likely to have less influence on the evolution of cricket than on other fundamental shifts, such as the increasing purchasing power of the Indian middle class. Similarly, structural changes in the research landscape, and the pressing societal needs of rising health care costs and climate change, are likely to influence research policy more than the nostalgic debates about the mix of basic and applied research, and the primacy of one form over the other.
