Science & the City

We’re caught in an odd crux of perspectives on justifications for science and technology. There’s the age-old idea of fundamental research having inherent, non-monetary value as a social service - sort of like a library, providing building blocks of knowledge we can all draw from. Increasingly, however scientists are having to prove the financial value and the return-on-investment of their research in order to get funding, much the way someone getting a loan from a bank for, say, a start-up cupcake stand does. When you factor in the increasing amount of time scientists have to spend with their hats-in-hands writing grants, submitting proposals, – an incredible amount of our collective scientific brain capacity is spent thinking about how to acquire and justify sources of funding from drying wells. Skilled researchers and their teams spend countless days, months, even years pandering to administrative managers who often only see a chart of red lines that need to be converted to black. Many scientists claim upwards of 30% or greater of their time is now taken up simply finding funds. This also disproportionately affects younger researchers who can’t secure funding based on their ‘brand’ the way more established scientists can.

Whether we can blame recent austerity measures, or reach further back and point at shifts like the rise of neoliberalism decades ago, we should regardless be considering the impact of having scientific research funding tightly intertwined with economic drivers and determinants. Some fields or areas of science may have obvious direct impacts that can be placed in a pre-determined matrix of financial value simply because of their practical applications in the economic market – say for instance, the development of a new type of rubber for tyres. But there is much research that has less clear and more indirect measurable economic impact. How do you calculate the return-on-investment for 30 years-worth of data on water levels in the Thames, or the discovery of a new species of moth in the Amazon?

American physicist Richard Feynman once argued that the three primary values of science are: it enables us to do and make all kinds of things, it provides intellectual enjoyment in doing and thinking about it, and it teaches us to remain unsure and in doubt. So how sure are we that the pursuit of scientific knowledge needs to be constantly weighted against economic measures?