Influence of corporate culture in reasearch
jayanta chatterjee
Thursday, 24 September 2009 17:42 UTC
Recently I watched few interviews of filmmaker Michael Moore in different US TV channels. I agree with many aspects he tells about capitalism, the way we practice it in majority of western countries, especially in US.
This corporate culture of our society has a direct bearing on the way we do creative work, including research. Few years ago UC Barkeley signed an agreement with Swiss drug giant Novartis’s agriculture wing Syngenta. Syngenta provided $25 million to the university’s department of plant and microbial biology. But it faced huge opposition from many researchers and students. Corporate managers became more careful to avoid such controversies ever since.
It’s becoming tougher to do original and innovative research in this corporate controlled education and research culture. We are yet to find out how best we can encourage creativity and originality and how best we can measure scientific output. We often forget that cranking data for data sake is not and must not be considered research. But it is becoming the main goal for majority of scientists in this era of “publish or perish”. Many times a good beginning (of a research project) is lost in the hurry to publish; many data are not cross-checked, strict adherence to scientific ethos/techniques are not always followed. Moreover, even talented scientists, mainly the junior ones, do not like to take risks by undertaking challenging project which might have far reaching positive consequences for our society and knowledge. Probably that’s the main reason of rapid increase in survey type work and reproduction of same type of work in different systems (plant, different animals, yeast, bacteria etc) where positive, publishable data is almost guaranteed. Yes, such research has yielded many benefits but almost all are coincidental, not planned while undertaking such projects.
Increasing influence of corporate sectors and corporate culture in academic research also have an impact on intellectual property rights, on the outcome of the research and its use, mainly for poorer countries and less-fortunate people around the world.
Updated 24 September 2009 17:45 UTC
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Replies
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That’s one of the main reasons why US science is increasingly dominated by mediocrity since last couple of decades and rate of innovation or invention is greatly slowed down.
Check any science fiction article written well known writers/scientists like Arthur C Clark during 1960s-70s. Many knowledgeable science fiction writers and scientists wrongly predicted that time that science will be far more advanced as compared to what we see today. On the other hand, many earlier science fiction writers like Jules Verne, Leonardo da Vinci rightly predicted many ground breaking innovations/inventions.
There is no doubt that rate of progress is slowing down, globally. And increasingly higher influence of corporate culture in academic research is one of the main reasons for that. -
Anonymous
as far as corporates finance CHAIRS/PROFESSORSHIPS/STUDNETSHIPS, I am fine with it in a country like india,,, at least it brings more security in terms of elevating reputation and academic outlook in a poor country… we have 45% of population below 1$ per day.. hence, economy has a lot to do with an individuals outlook in a society like Indian,, the more secured and financially stable a person is, the better he can practice moral issues without hassle,, you cannot ask a scientist at RS20K/month to compete with full vigour,, some may and always will, but here the Q is about majority,, finally, corporates has a moral obligation towards the citizens of the country, to which it sells its products to show solidarity and functionality in terms of finance atleast.. rest, time would take its own course :D
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Anonymous
In countries like India, corporate participation does not necessarily mean increase in salary or scientific productivity. But surely few more job for some more people. Very few people really care at what cost we are getting those jobs! Those people who have the required exposure, education and ability to think at that level, do not mater so far policy making is concerned.
I personally know many India corporate houses which give only Rs 6K/month to a person with masters’ degree in biology and about Rs 25K/month to persons with PhD and a couple years of postdoc experience. Such corporate houses are mainly involved in clinical/crop varietal trials or outsource of routine lab work or scaling up of a specific product (it practically sums up Indian private research initiatives in biology). Such routine jobs will not bring good salary as the market is over saturated with “qualified” candidates suitable to do the required job for the company. Very few people, in fewer companies get a decent salary that allows him/her to sustain a decent life in a metro city. Almost all such R&D centers are in cities, due to lack of infrastructure in other areas even though infrastructural/maintenance cost is very high in Indian cities these days. I talked to few entrepreneurs and they told me that, in reality, the production cost is not that cheap if you rely mainly on export (to first world countries) where you have to maintain certain quality. Productivity and quality of work/finished product is very poor for average Indian worker. According to one scientist cum entrepreneur, “about four people in India is equivalent to one in US in biological science work, BPO type job”. It’s not always due to quality of manpower but sometimes include inadequate infrastructure (power outage, road condition, quality-supply of raw materials etc). There is a new book by Nandan Nilekeni. According to his book, Infosys type IT companies spends some crorers of rupees every year only to maintain traffic around its offices in Bangalore. Bangalore city cannot pay to employ enough police to maintain decent traffic and law and order. Cost of doing business in Bangalore is not less than many big cities in the world.
Indian corporate houses also influence Govt universities and institutes in a big way, although not much has been published in media. Besides, there are many companies that are there in the business ONLY to accumulate Govt subsidies (e,g Biofuel and renewable energy sector) and tax breaks. Many so-called R&D centers (just like NGOs) are nothing but eye wash.
Probably Indian private companies will improve in the long run. But that will happen only IF strict supervision by Govt and other scientific organization do their part for overseeing each other, which is very unlikely considering Indian situation at present.
Moreover, almost NO corporate house really care for its moral obligation so long they are not held accountable by law of the land and its executers. If would have been the case, then companies like Reliance would have been out of business in India for long. Reality tells me that Reliance not only flourishing there but is the biggest and most successful company in India. Does it not indicate something to you?
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