When the government funds research, it is often funding propaganda and slanted results — but the propaganda may not be sought by the government (sometimes it is) but may instead be bad information being fed to the government to divert policy in a way that is useful to a third party. Bureaucrats often don’t care — they’re just moving money from one pocket to another and the results are “whatever”.
When a corporation funds research, it wants solid results and will take steps to make sure that it is spending money wisely.
Let corporations fund Harvard. Taxpayers should not fund Harvard.
Exactly right. Government research is very self-serving.
1. University researchers want to keep the gravy flowing to fund their PhD students.
2. The government managers want to keep the gravy flowing because that is their livelihood.
Nobody looks at the results critically nor is there any objective measure for success nor is there ever an end-date. It just keeps going and going and going.
A boss of mine once called it “annuity research” and “hobby research.” There is no accountability to produce useful results.