I’ve finally signed up as a supporter of Science Debate 2008, a few days after it didn’t take place, and not without some misgivings. Yes, it’s probably a good thing that the presidential candidates start talking about the role of science, technology and innovation in economic recovery (and in fact it’s a theme I’ve heard creep into Sen. Clinton’s speech in recent days).

But the Science Debate organization itself raises a few concerns. I can’t find it listed on Guidestar as as a charitable organization, and actually it bears the strong marks of an “astroturfing” operation put together by DC lobbyists for the major research universities. [UPDATE 8/9/08: ScienceDebate now says clearly that it is applying for charitable status. See their donation form. I still have some misgivings.] Please, prove me wrong in the comments if you will, but if you want to get the sense of how astroturf looks different from a venture motivated by the genuine joy in science, check out Prof. Brian Greene’s World Science Festival planned for here in New York later this spring. Both have impressive steering committees, but there’s a big, big difference in tone. Which do you think will be more effective at building public support in the long run?

It’s not that the organizers of Science Debate 2008 are wrong to focus some public attention on the reasons national governments in the industrialized nations fund scientific investigation, even in relatively hard times. These are well understood: above-average economic growth owes to innovation, and innovation looks to basic science, and the positive externalities of basic science are so strong that private industry will not itself fund it adequately.

And yet, these are hard times. And there’s something more than a little troublesome about one sector of the economy among the many dependent on public support presuming that its needs are so much more obvious and compelling than those of the others. Almost, er, elitist, one might say.

More on OK, let’s have a ‘Science Debate’ . . . but a full one

Here’s an interesting trend to watch in the convergence of various economic development activities where universities and communities interact.

The Connective Corridor initiative at Syracuse University and the UniversityCity Connections initiative at Colorado State University in Fort Collins are interesting examples I’ve recently come across of universities being used as key components of downtown economic-development strategies.

Both campuses are not quite downtown, but each is clearly conceived as part of the overall asset base of its central city. Through these initiatives, civic leadership is assuring connectivity – both concretely in terms of transportation infrastructure and abstractly in terms of “mind share” – between the healthy asset and the part of town needing improvement or stimulation.

I don’t know Fort Collins except through reading about it for my professional work, but I know Syracuse well enough to know this connectivity is an urgent matter. Without it, the gorgeous architecture of downtown, the emerging arts district of the Near Westside, the Technology Garden business incubator, and the nightlife around Armory Square all remain dangerously disconnected from the source of vitality (and purchasing power) up University Hill.
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Those research institutions that moved early to raise state or other non-federal funding for research on “unapproved” embryonic stem-cell lines now confront an uncomfortable implication or two. Bear with me. . .

Any one who set up such a program understood — though perhaps many outside the university system did not — that not only would they be charging all direct costs of “unapproved” research to non-federal sources, but they would also be forgoing recovery of all related indirect costs.

In other words, if a university financed a facility in which non-approved research would be done, it could not then allocate its amortization of these capital costs to the pool from which indirect cost recoveries are negotiated with the feds. Same with shared research infrastructure and administrative services related to unapproved research projects, and with facilities maintenance.
More on Implications of the recent stem cell news . . . will the race go to the slow?

You may have caught the news that a coalition of 10 Michigan foundations has committed $100 million to an eight-year New Economy Initiative for Southeast Michigan, an effort to reinvent Detroit’s auto-centric economy through an intensive program of grant-making in science and technology fields.

There’s a lot of local politics involved here: for example, the state attorney general strong-arming Ford Foundation to pay more attention to the region in which it is still incorporated and whence its endowed wealth derives. But what interests me is the frank interest in the role of science and technology in regional economic health by such a large set of staid foundations, including two (Mott and Kellogg) that explicitly disclaimed interest in tbed when I spoke to them for a Battelle project six or seven years ago.

According to the job description posted, the NEI seeks to fund projects including those which: “. . . . improve technology transfer from university and private labs; coordinate and expand local capital networks; . . . launch a promising nonprofit enterprise, such as a new university research center; expand a high-tech enterprise in an inner city. . . ; provide start-up capital to a for-profit enterprise to launch a new high-tech product. . . . ”

Yes, there’s plenty of equal attention to workforce training for targeted populations (the working class and disadvantaged) but this initiative will not be embarrassed to fund university-based S&T projects for their own sake, and even to help spin-off for-profit enterprises get capitalized. Wow.

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