The government corruption is so great that it can never be overcome.

Gator-ade? Tang?

BobMbx on February 18, 2009 at 2:31 PM

That is two and one of those concerned football. How about free enterprise?

Johan Klaus on February 18, 2009 at 5:29 PM

???

Tang was not designed for football…

Read the link I provided on IP and tech transfer. There are several references to university-derived technologies that became commercialized.

Maybe I’m missing your point here (I joined the thread late). Are you contending that the private sector is the best venue for research?

Is that not a tax supported school? Do you think that universities should not be concerned about the bottom line?

Johan Klaus on February 18, 2009 at 5:46 PM

Sloppy on my part — replace “bottom line” with “profit margins.”

I’m not sure where the distinction between state schools and private schools come in for you, but I would hasten to point out that most major public universities derive only a small portion of their operating budgets (and probably even less of their capital budgets) from their home states. I’d have to look for the articles, but I seem to remember during the U of Colorado budget kerfuffle, the number was typically less than 20%. I was at a Big 10 for several years and I think that was about the figure for our university.

Don’t forget that the “product” a university is producing is rather complex. It’s the educated people they graduate, the new knowledge that is produced, and the service to their communities (through things like extension offices) — it’s not just the inventions and the intellectual property that arise from their faculty members’ research or the start-up companies in their research parks.

Repeat after me, Seth: not gonna happen. No one can stop a multinational company from outsourcing jobs, if that helps their bottom line. Even Obama mentioned last week that Americans can never compete with the manual laborer in Bangladesh – think a bit over that. If US government stopped our companies from outsourcing, our biggest corporations will be soon be taken over by companies from other countries which do not have these restrictions. You cannot be the only sheep in a land of hawks – period.

peter_griffin on February 18, 2009 at 11:55 AM

Offshoring, not outsourcing.

Then what can you suggest that doesn’t put US citizens at a penalty in their own country?

Y-not on February 18, 2009 at 12:44 PM

Companies are concerned with the bottom line and that usually means that the research they pursue is close to a product that can be marketed. University research is about discovery.

Is that not a tax supported school? Do you think that universities should not be concerned about the bottom line?

There you go again. Incidentally, I have been in a management position in F500 companies, and have even owned a startup at one point. What, pray dear sir, is *your* real world experience? Just for the kicks, I would ask you to be at a gathering like the dean’s dinner at UCLA, and talk to the engineering faculty for an hour. Then come back and tell me how many conservatives you found in that group.

Our differences apart, why are you taking a class in Unix? Do you just want to know the commands, or do you plan on tinkering with the kernel?

Cheers, and have a great day!

peter_griffin on February 18, 2009 at 10:14 AM

By now, everyone here understands that you badly want us to be impressed with you. Why that is, only your psychiatrist knows for sure. Anyone who is trying to pimp his resume for credibility on an internet forum has got some issues. (I’m sure you did a great job supervising Wally in the stock room.)

You repeatedly ignore counter arguments and simply repeat your unfounded and false assertions. If you were actually able to refute what is said to you, you would do so rather than appealing to your alleged expertise as a Fortune 500 employee.

Responding to you is a waste of time and becomes boring because you don’t actually engage in a conversation.

Gator-ade? Tang?

BobMbx on February 18, 2009 at 2:31 PM

That is two and one of those concerned football. How about free enterprise?

Gator-ade? Tang?

BobMbx on February 18, 2009 at 2:31 PM

Good examples!

This might be of interest to folks interested in tech transfer and commercialization of university-based research:

“The Role of Federally-Funded University Research in the Patent System”
Testimony of Arti K. Rai, Professor, Duke Law School
Committee on the Judiciary
United States Senate
October 24, 2007

What has a university produced that has earned income other than a football team?

Johan Klaus on February 17, 2009 at 10:18 PM

Gator-ade? Tang?

What has a university produced that has earned income other than a football team?

Johan Klaus on February 17, 2009 at 10:18 PM

Lots of things. This is one that is just off the top of my head: the cancer-fighting agent taxol. Florida State made a lot of money off of taxol.

I think what people need to understand is that the type of research that occurs in universities is, in large part, different than the type of research that happens at companies. Companies are concerned with the bottom line and that usually means that the research they pursue is close to a product that can be marketed. University research is about discovery. Sometimes in the course of that basic research there will be a lead towards a drug or a product. Often that lead is picked up by industry — since the work that the university professor does is usually published for everyone to see. That does not mean that the work at the university was essential — it was.

More and more universities are trying to encourage their faculty to work with industry and start their own small companies. The Research Triangle is a great example as is Purdue’s research park. But there are some things that are simply incompatible about university research, which is just as much about teaching the next generation of scientists as it is about producing results (or a product), and research for profit. That’s ok, imho, because we need the next generation of scientists and engineers to run the companies that are so important to our country.

I’m taking a UNIX class at UCLA. The instructor just got laid off from JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratories) after about 20 years there. Literally, a rocket scientist. The only job he could find is with the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He’s moving there at the end of this month. It’s a real shame he couldn’t find a spot at a liberal university where all the brainiacs are.

Django on February 18, 2009 at 3:47 AM

Trust me, it’s really unlikely that politics has anything to do with your instructor not getting a faculty position at UCLA. Professors are intellectual snobs and have a narrow-minded view of what counts as preparation for joining their club. Although there are some exceptions (particularly in “professional” degree programs like law and business), in general departments balk at awarding faculty positions to people whose background is from industry or hands-on research. They tend to want people with lengthy track-records of publishing in academic journals… which is not usually something folks who have been working in a non-university have.

in fact, a lot of universities require grants to match 50cents to the dollar for the university administrations, so that they can carry out their projects, which of course makes life more difficult for the poor bloke who is trying to bring in the money. I have friends who are in those shoes, and it is not easy (specially in this sad state of economy).

I think *all* universities and research institutions require overhead. The overhead (we used to call it “indirect costs” or IDC) shouldn’t affect your friends efforts to find funding. IDC rates are negotiated between the university and the agencies based on a really complicated formula unique to each institution. 50 cents on the dollar is typical, although some research-intensive (teaching-light) institutions have much higher rates (and I think that teaching-intensive places tend to have lower rates). Anyway, the grant proposals your colleagues submit to places like NSF have a budget of direct costs from which indirect costs are calculated. The scientific review panel assesses whether or not the direct costs are appropriate to the work being proposed, but the agency (NSF) deals with the IDC part. So, someone from a place like a national lab (high IDC) is not at a disadvantage in the review process relative to someone from a university (average IDC).

Corporations and some charitable foundations don’t like to pay IDC, but talented grants & contracts officers (and smart development officers) can help convince them to do so.

Yeah, I used to do this stuff for a living… :-)

That’s why on these threads I always get a little sad to see that the conservative public’s distrust of academe (which is largely rooted in the shenanigans of guys like Bill Ayers and Ward Churchill) spills over onto the science faculty.

Y-not on February 18, 2009 at 12:04 PM

I know exactly what you mean, since I feel the same way. Also, you do make a good point about endowments – in fact, a lot of universities require grants to match 50cents to the dollar for the university administrations, so that they can carry out their projects, which of course makes life more difficult for the poor bloke who is trying to bring in the money. I have friends who are in those shoes, and it is not easy (specially in this sad state of economy).

In fact, the biggest chunk of private grants made to a university comes through technology companies, not through government endowments to liberal arts (not that I am demeaning the importance of the latter). So, again, please pause before you generalize …

peter_griffin on February 17, 2009 at 11:10 PM

Actually, this is a common misperception. Corporate giving is not the largest slice of private philanthropy — giving from individuals is.

As an example, here is a break out for gift sources from MIT (FY07):
• $100.2 million from alumni
• $33.5 million from non-alumni friends
• $45.3 million from corporations, corporate foundations, and trade
associations
• $151.5 million from foundations, charitable trusts, and other charitable
organizations
• $1.5 million from other sources

That’s why many of us who work in fundraising are so worried about what the democrats plan on doing — raising taxes on individuals making more than $200K/yr. Several months ago I posted a study comparing U.S. philanthropy (by source) versus British philanthropy. Although the Brits are amongst the most charitable Europeans, they still lag dramatically behind the Americans. In the U.S. the most philanthropic segment (individual donors) are those making $200K and above.

Most universities and colleges have already experienced significant budget deficits because of the double whammy of poorly performing endowments (a lot of gift funds are invested in endowments which are now tanking because of the stock market) and a decline in charitable giving from individuals that Joe Biden says are rich and need to be taxed more to show their patriotism. Corporate giving is drying up. And, of course, private foundations are also feeling the crunch (again because of their endowments and jerk-offs like Madoff), so giving from private foundations is going to be down as well.

In terms of major research institutions like the ones you cite, I suspect that the largest non-tuition based revenue stream is actually federal research grants (to science and engineering programs). Remember, in addition to research grants paying for direct costs like salaries and equipment, every dollar that is applied to conduct a specific research program carries with it ~50 cents of “overhead” funds. For MIT I found that in FY2006, research revenues made up almost 57% of the institute’s total operating revenues. That figure probably includes research contracts from corporations, but I’m sure that the vast majority is from federal grants from NIH, NSF, DoD, etc.

Your point about where the funds are directed (towards science/technology rather than liberal arts) is valid, of course. Science and engineering faculty live and die on grants to their research programs; liberal arts faculty (and even in my experience business faculty) do not seek much outside funding. That’s why on these threads I always get a little sad to see that the conservative public’s distrust of academe (which is largely rooted in the shenanigans of guys like Bill Ayers and Ward Churchill) spills over onto the science faculty.

or RINO’s. Think about it.

peter_griffin on February 18, 2009 at 11:51 AM

McCain.

We’re still doing quite well here in Ohio for having Strickland and Brown. Perhaps if you made it a lot harder to offshore, you would have plenty of people to fill jobs, domestically.

sethstorm on February 18, 2009 at 11:40 AM

Repeat after me, Seth: not gonna happen. No one can stop a multinational company from outsourcing jobs, if that helps their bottom line. Even Obama mentioned last week that Americans can never compete with the manual laborer in Bangladesh – think a bit over that. If US government stopped our companies from outsourcing, our biggest corporations will be soon be taken over by companies from other countries which do not have these restrictions. You cannot be the only sheep in a land of hawks – period.

As for the last sentence of your post, it makes no sense. Middle ground never solved anything.

fossten on February 18, 2009 at 10:40 AM

All the GOP candidates in the last few presidential elections (either won or lost) have either been “compassionate conservatives”, or RINO’s. Think about it.

Ohio… So many morons and idiots complain about where they live and taxes and so on and so on, but keep the SAME EXACT CROOKS in office… Too fricking bad CA, too bad NY, your idiots and deserve all you get and more…

Mark Garnett on February 18, 2009 at 9:35 AM

We’re still doing quite well here in Ohio for having Strickland and Brown. Perhaps if you made it a lot harder to offshore, you would have plenty of people to fill jobs, domestically.

Please point me to a culture which was purely conservative and remained hugely successful for centuries. I firmly believe no political ideology is a perfect recipe’ for the future, it is only with a mutual give-and-take between ideologies can we arrive at a rational and acceptable middle ground.

peter_griffin on February 17, 2009 at 7:18 P

In CA we are seeing a culture in which purely left-wing socialist policy is being pursued. Beautiful isn’t it.

As to UCLA, I presume that you know the difference between the north and south campuses? When UCLA grad students joined the UAW, south campus was adamantly against, the engineers in particular.

Please point me to a culture which was purely conservative and remained hugely successful for centuries. I firmly believe no political ideology is a perfect recipe’ for the future, it is only with a mutual give-and-take between ideologies can we arrive at a rational and acceptable middle ground.

peter_griffin on February 17, 2009 at 7:18 PM

Straw man argument. Please point me to a culture that was conservative (i.e. capitalistic) and stayed that way for centuries. That’s never been tried.

As for the last sentence of your post, it makes no sense. Middle ground never solved anything.

I can tell you don’t know much about the real world, aka private enterprise, and are basically talking out of your ass.

Django on February 18, 2009 at 3:47 AM

There you go again. Incidentally, I have been in a management position in F500 companies, and have even owned a startup at one point. What, pray dear sir, is *your* real world experience? Just for the kicks, I would ask you to be at a gathering like the dean’s dinner at UCLA, and talk to the engineering faculty for an hour. Then come back and tell me how many conservatives you found in that group.

Our differences apart, why are you taking a class in Unix? Do you just want to know the commands, or do you plan on tinkering with the kernel?

Cheers, and have a great day!