August 30, 2008
Well Duh!
We noted in passing the loss of Bell Labs basic research in the sciences. So now along comes a former Cisco CTO to do the Long Kentucky Road speil as well —
America is facing an innovation crisis. To fix it, corporations need to find new ways of funding fundamental research into physics and environmental sciences.
That’s the argument made by Judy Estrin, former Cisco CTO and author of the new book Closing the Innovation Gap.
Eatrin says Bell Labs’ decision to discontinue basic science research is just a continuation of a trend that started in the 1970s and 1980s when corporate America, under pressure from Japanese competitors, started cutting back on long-term research.
“Corporations focused on efficiencies and productivity started to make research more short term and tailored to the company’s needs,” says Estrin in an interview with Wired.com, “with the result that most research done at corporations now is applied research.”
What I think is a little rich is the ‘pot - kettle’ meme of this piece. Cisco is notorious for being a below the belt competitor. The ramifications of that is R&D efforts of now dead former competitors never see the light of day. Want to pop the cork on R&D? Make it a 100% write off, dollar for dollar. Whether its grants to universities or done in-house.
Filed under Intellectual Property, Legislation / Regulation, competition by Dr. Dog
Comments on Well Duh! »
Agreed. Unfortunately the current Congress, and the big media’s preferred Presidential candidate prefer higher corporate taxes to fund more federal grants (like federal grants have ever spawned a milligram of innovation). You can;t really expect much better from a group whose majority have never had a real job or operated a real business.