By James Pethokoukis and Donald W. Braben

Has American scientific innovation been hampered by the restrictions of the late-20th century? Is venture research the key to a more innovative future? What can scientific institutions do to unlock this future? Recently, I discussed these questions and more with Don Braben. 

Don Braben is an honorary professor and vice president of research at University College London. He’s the author of several books, including Scientific Freedom: The Elixir of Civilization, which was originally published in 2008 and was republished by Stripe Press in 2020.

Below is an abbreviated transcript of our conversation. You can read our full discussion here. You can also subscribe to my podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher, or download the podcast on Ricochet.

I‘d like more transformative technological progress and scientific discovery, but it seems like the only solution I keep hearing is, “Let’s spend a lot more money.” But while that may be necessary, your book makes the case that this is not a sufficient solution. Why is that?

Over the past few decades, academics have had to adjust to radical change. Before the 1970s, most academics did not have to prepare proposals for what they wanted to do, and they could simply pursue whatever they had in mind. The harvest from this unconstrained academic freedom was spectacular. The breakthroughs of James Clark Maxwell and Max Planck inspired others to create their own unpredicted technologies like the laser and myriads of spinoffs, countless components of the electronic and telecommunications revolutions, nuclear power, biotechnology, and medical diagnostics galore — all of which are now indispensable parts of life.

Yet all of these discoveries depended on a scientific freedom we no longer have. In the 1970s, this laissez-faire style of research ended because governments wanted to implement enormous increases in the size of the academic sector. Furthermore, it was decided that academic research should be aimed specifically at increasing national prosperity, something that had previously been an accidental benefit. That meant ways had to be found to severely limit academics’ participation in research.

So
while spending large amounts of money would certainly be very nice for some
scientists, it would not solve the problem that I’m trying to address.

So
if we’ve shifted away from the bottom-up, curiosity-driven model that inspired
these discoveries, what is our current model?

If
academics want funding today, they must prepare written proposals on what they
want to do and submit them to university administrators to confirm that they meet
a variety of criteria. Their proposals must be within the agency’s priority
areas, provide convincing arguments that the support would be the best value
for money, and prove that the research will result in some sort of national
benefit.

If these standards are met, the agency then invites an assessment of the proposals from a few scientists chosen to act as anonymous referees. These referees draft reports that evaluate the proposals and then submit those to an agency committee. Unfortunately, on average committees only have funds to support some 25 percent of proposals received. Such decisions mean that many excellent proposals get lost — but might have been funded if they had been considered on another day with different experts.

So for the first time since the Renaissance, academics — who have long been the source of unpredicted discoveries — are now faced with severe limits on what they can think and do. We have to remove those limits.

But
surely, at some point, a decision has to be made about where to spend money. Do
you just think that there’s a better way for big institutions — like
universities or the government — to make these funding decisions?

My
own experience with the Venture Research Initiative is relevant here. It ran
from 1980 to 1990 and was sponsored by British Petroleum (BP). We got about 10,000
proposals from European and North American scientists and supported around 40 of
those without using peer review. The total cost was some $20 million over the
decades.

We
developed selection methods based on extended face-to-face discussions that looked
for original and determined people whose research might radically change how we
think about something important, and we fostered mutual trust and gave feedback
in real time. I think that’s definitely a better system than our current one. So
far, it has led to some 14 major breakthroughs, several of which have won major
prizes and honors.

And
any big company can set up its own venture research initiative — it’s a
cost-effective investment in the future.

What
do you think about funding breakthrough advances through innovation prizes, like
the XPRIZE?

I actually had a long association with the people involved in the XPRIZE, and they asked me to join them to set some targets. But I declined, and I told them they could consult anybody else in the world, because their opinion on what will be important in the future will be as valid as my own. Nobody knows what the new discoveries will be. Ninety-five percent of the universe is unknown to us — dark energy, dark matter, consciousness — we don’t know very much. There’s a lot of ignorance in the world, and while we have to find ways of overcoming it, we cannot predict it.

The 20th century demonstrates this in spades. Who would have predicted the laser, or even (back to the Max Planck) that energy should be quantized? We cannot know what the future holds, so we must restore scientists’ creative freedom. We have to rely on what the scientists themselves want to do.

Does this problem
actually begin much earlier than the funding level, with an educational system that
dissuades people from being imaginative and taking risks?

That’s a good question. We very well may have traveled too far along this path of major technological discovery, where the focus is on the short term and competing with other people. However, venture researchers have no competitors. From Planck onwards, nobody was trying to do what they were trying to do, and they succeeded and changed the world. We all benefited hugely from that.

As to whether or not there are people still thinking this way, I’m an optimist. I think we’ll find them if they know that the source of funding is there. You don’t need many — we need perhaps 500 scientists in the whole of the century, that’s it. That’s a drop in the ocean compared to the millions of scientists now in the world.

The post 5 questions for Don Braben on the benefits of venture research and scientific freedom appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.