What you need to know, and what you can do for science, in the financial crisis
Maxine Clarke
Wednesday, 05 November 2008 08:33 UTC
As the world faces its biggest financial crisis in decades, Nature keeps you updated on what it all means for science. Will your research funding be cut? How secure is your company or research institution? And can the meltdown actually create opportunities for science? Articles, including Editorials, News stories, Essays and other features, can be accessed from this main feature page. See also the journal’s regularly updated financial crisis blog.
Nature Immunology, in its November Editorial (9, 1199; 2008), asks what the cost will be for science of the turmoil in the world financial markets. The US government has now committed more than $700 billion to ease the crisis, which will raise the US debt ceiling to approximately $11.3 trillion. For perspective, $700 billion is roughly 3.4 times the 2008 budget of the European Union and 24 times the 2008 budget of the entire US National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The 2009 NIH budget proposed by the Bush administration was already set to stall biomedical research with its zero increase. Even before the present financial crisis, ineffective political lobbying and disengagement of the public on the importance of biomedical research may have contributed to the present state of anemic science funding. Now that combination may join forces with a debt of at least $11.3 trillion to form what could become a prolonged stalemate for government-supported biomedical research.
Nature Immunology suggests that biomedical researchers take a proactive stance: “those who have the ability and knowledge to influence politicians and the public to invest in scientific research must make every effort to be heard loud and clear to ensure the continued advance of the present amount of scientific research, at the very least.”
UPDATE 24 February 2009.
The latest issue of Nature on the recession provides analysis and advice on how to survive the global economic downturn. Science is key to nation-building during a recession but scientists must learn to convince politicians of the need to protect research budgets. Building global links and breaking down the barriers between disciplines is vital if the world is to weather the financial squeeze. Central banks must also end their obsession with cutting interest rates and technology start-ups will need to cut costs and sell what they can. A stimulus package for the developing world could, however, benefit everyone. The Nature recession watch special has selected free content, and is regularly updated.
Also this week’s free Nature podcast provides “top tips” for how to survive the recession in science.
Updated 24 February 2009 14:30 UTC
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Replies
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The implications of the financial crisis on science might indeed be something to worry about. Actually – given the impact on the real economy (“main street” rather than “wall street”), it is increasingly an economic crisis rather than merely a financial crisis.
This morning I actually did an interview with a managing director of a $8 billion private equity fund. Before taking up this position he was the Director for Research Initiatives at Princeton University, so I also asked him on his view on the impact on science funding. At least as far as private funding was concerned he was actually hopeful. Although he thinks 2009 will be problematic, beyond that he is certain that funding into crucial scientific areas such as energy will continue to grow. These are simply too important issues to be neglected, and this is also his expectation for public funding, particularly given Obama’s stance on for example renewable energies.
The full interview will appear in the January issue of Nature Materials, so stay tuned.
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As the New York Times reports, directly or indirectly colleagues are beginning to feel the economic downturn now…
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Post updated, 24 February 2009.
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One thing that we could all do is to remind ourselves of what Harry Hopkins under Roosevelt did in the 1930s. Roosevelt’s fiscal stimulus program was not concerned solely with building roads and dams and the like, but in supporting writers, poets, sculptors, and other artists. Today, this could and should include scientific researchers. NASA has had medical and other payoffs no one could have predicted. So, in arguing for support here, it should be emphasized that immediate payoffs should not be expected. Seeing where the desire for immediate payoffs by those in the financial sector have gotten us, this may not be an impossible sell in the current climate. At least, I would hope not.
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