snails with the beard - Day

2:38PM - Bioeconomy and the real purpose of research

The Lancet: "When asked about the purpose of medical research most people would hopefully reply: to advance knowledge for the good of society; to improve the health of people worldwide; or to find better ways to treat and prevent disease. The reality is different. The research environment, with its different players, is now much less conducive to thinking about such noble goals. Funders have often adopted long-drawn-out bureaucratic processes for their grant giving, and yet rarely ask for a systematic assessment of the need for the proposed research. Full costing is often demanded at first submission with enormous waste of time and resources. Funders operate within political frameworks that emphasise short-term successes and outcomes. Decisions are dependent on opaque peers' and experts' assessments within each field and take many months. Pharmaceutical companies and industry-sponsored research seek a maximum profitable return on their investment. And academic institutions, which are more and more expected to operate like businesses, think about the economic benefit and the commercial potential of research, or about their performance in a research assessment exercise (measured largely by the surrogate of publications). Research has become an enterprise, an economic engine for nations, a necessary step on the way to economic growth. But surely the purpose of research is more than that.

It is time to stop and reflect on how we got to this point and how we can restructure and reframe the way research is done and rewarded. First, we need to remind ourselves about the real purpose of research. Second, we need to find ways of deciding what research is needed and what impact it is likely to have. Research funders and those who benefit from research—patients, practising clinicians, and policy makers—have a crucial role here. Third, academic institutions should assess and reward researchers on a long-term basis, which will make it much easier to assess the true and meaningful impact of their research. Finally, researchers must remind themselves why they have chosen their career. They must do more to defend an environment conducive to research that is for the benefit and health of people worldwide, not merely as one element of economic policy making."