User:Saandahl

From Cyberlaw

Idealism of the Academy:

Supporters credit IRUC with enhancing the competitiveness of U.S. firms and facilitating the swift application of technology to the market. Critics argue that the IRUC conflates the values of academia with the interests of the private sector: infusing universities with economic motives that undermine their idealistic pursuit of knowledge and academic duty to disseminate truth. Newberg & Dunn ask if the “academic ethos of open inquiry [can] be reconciled with the interests of private firms in appropriating the value of information by restricting its diffusion?” They conclude that the structure of industry-university collaboration and the institutional rules that govern these relationships can accommodate the benefits of collaboration without undermining the unique value structure of academic institutions.

My problem with the argument that financial incentives derived from Bayh-Dole IURC have perverted previously pure academic research institutions is that it assumes academic research was previously pure. Are we to suppose that before federal licensing regulations, academic research ignored potentially profitable research opportunities in favor of “purely” intellectual projects?

The problem with this idealistic account of the development of knowledge is that it ignores the history of scientific advancement. While it is impossible to survey the historical record of development in such a short space, I posit that secrecy, not the open dissemination of knowledge, is the norm in scientific discovery. Darwin, for example, only produced his theory for a few colleagues before the publication of his article Natural Selection for fear that someone else would co-opt his ideas. Many revolutionary technologies, such as nuclear power and the Internet, were developed in secrecy by the military. The research and development of applied technology, I posit, has not occurred in the idealistic universe of academia, but in the context of secrecy and proprietary interests. To argue differently is to misconstrue scientific development.

Most common example of clashing values occurs in the area of confidentiality. Authors argue that conflicting interests are manifested in the delay of publication of research findings so that the industrial partner can ensure a competitive advantage in the marketplace (usually by patenting applications of the research). This conflicts with academic pressure to quickly publish the results of cutting edge research. But as discussed above, it is unclear whether the publication was delayed in the past due to the economic incentives of the individual researcher. Presumably, academics are not stupid. They know when they have discovered something with high commercial value. In the past, in order to capitalize on these findings, academics would leave the university to join a firm that could bring its commercial where with all to commercialize the research. In the past, there was an incentive to leave academia. Where as previously, academics had to leave the academic setting to capitalize on their findings, Bayh-Dole allows them to stay in the university.

The Net lab case study highlights the advantages of IURC. It could not have been constructed without industry collaboration. It allowed Maryland students to access state of the art supply-chain management technology, giving them valuable and unique experience in the job market and connecting them with companies who participate in the program. It enhanced the career opportunities of students and the reputation of the Smith school to provide a unique and relevant business education.

As an aside, Newberg & Dunn cite statistics that undermine Sheldon Krimsky’s thesis that academic research in the biotech field has been captured by corporate interests. The authors claim that private corporations fund only 7% of all university research, a much smaller amount than Professor Krimsky would have had the class believe. 60% of research is funded by the federal government, which Professor Krimsky saw as a more benign influence than large corporations.

• The New Secrecy of Money

I think you're right that it's a mistake to assume that prior to the Bayh-Dole Act academic scientific research was conducted in a utopian environment of information-sharing and openness. Clearly that's not the case. But I do wonder whether or not there is a subtler way in which Bayh-Dole and the like have created further incentives for secrecy that didn't exist before.

The first few examples that you use - Darwin, nuclear technology, and the internet - are all good examples of research that was not conducted out in the open, but for reasons entirely apart from financial or economic considerations.

Darwin didn't publish his theory of natural selection not because he was worried that somebody else would steal it (although it is true that, at the end, he rushed to publication out of concern that his findings were going to be preempted) but because he feared (rightly so) that it would be deemed heretical by many, and he wanted to make damn sure that he had it ample support for his conclusions before he went public with anything.

Similarly, with both the development of the bomb and the internet, the government was funding projects that were kept secret out of a concern for national security in a war-time environment (WWII in the case of the former, the Cold War in the case of the latter).

I think you're right that scientific research in the academy has never been entirely bereft of economic considerations. But I do think that, perhaps, the shift brought on in the last couple of decades has moved financial and economic considerations from an incidental consideration for researchers and (especially) universities to a more present and primary consideration. It's not that a lack of openness in research is a new problem, but it is a problem that has gotten worse.

DVorhaus 14:44, 6 March 2006 (EST)