In Between Public and Private

HMS receives over $200M in government funding per year.

The former Associate Dean for Public Affairs at Harvard Medical School, Don Gibbons liked to say the main purpose (and rationale) of university public relations (especially at a place like Harvard) is to report to the public how institutions are spending their money.

The NIH, NSF, NIH, DARPA, DOD and the litany of other agencies that fund research grants rely upon tax payer revenues. Thus, those of us in academic public affairs should strive to explain, in a riveting way, of course, the public's ROI.

With the anemic economy and the winding down of the initial stimulus package (ARRA), the battle over the value of research funding has escalated.

In his recent State of the Union Address President Obama expressed his unwavering support for preserving investment in science and engineering:

In a single generation, revolutions in technology have transformed the way we live, work and do business ... Meanwhile, nations like China and India realized that with some changes of their own, they could compete in this new world. And so they started educating their children earlier and longer, with greater emphasis on math and science. They're investing in research and new technologies. Just recently, China became home to the world's largest private solar research facility, and the world's fastest computer.

On the other hand, at least once a month a politician expresses utter outrage about what they deem to be outrageous and wasteful research. The key is to cite what seem to be crazy examples, like shrimp on treadmills, without providing a lot of context or understanding. Out of such outrage, tough-minded proposals emerge. Let the following sink in slowly.

In 2009, he [Sen. Tom Coburn] wrote legislation to eliminate NSF’s funding for political science research, arguing that political commentary is available for free on cable news networks already. He lampooned several research projects as a waste of money.

A prototype of a Micro Air Vehicle (MAV).

As an aside, a project at SEAS that benefited from ARRA funding, Robobees, rapidly came under attack because, as far as we could tell, people thought the name sounded silly.

The project builds upon more than 10 years of research and, mind you, has direct applications in areas such as espionage, search and rescue, and agriculture. Moreover, the work is cool and inspiring, encouraging kids to pursue science and engineering. A nice capstone: a prototype of the robotic insect was presented at the White House by Harvard President Drew Faust as a "thank you" for supporting such innovative, creative research.

In any case, government funding for research is becoming harder and harder to obtain (so say our faculty and grant administrators) and will likely not see any increases for some time. Further, such funding will likely become less and less reliable, spurning entire fields (e.g. space exploration), and taking less risky bets so as to avoid political and public pressure.

There is reason, however, to be grudgingly optimistic. In the past few weeks, I witnessed a few, unexpected glimmers.

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SEAS Dean Cherry A. Murray
and Fred Kavli of the Kavli Foundation.

Fred Kavli, a former manufacturing tycoon who transformed his fortune into a foundation, visited  campus on May 18th. Through his efforts, funding for basic research has received a dramatic boost. Harvard is one of 15 universities with Kavli-supported institutes. Kavli has focused on all scales of discovery: spanning from the smallest research (nano) to the largest (astro) to the most complex (neuro).

At a dinner honoring Kavli (who also gave a professorial chair to Harvard), Jeremy Bloxham, Dean of Science for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, said that he believed that increasingly, researchers would turn to private individuals for funding.

In his mind, the Fred Kavli's of the world have the right mix of vision and patience to invest in science and engineer for the long-term, and most important, for its own sake. Having sat down with Kavli myself, it is hard not to be overwhelmed by how much he absolutely adores the exploration of new frontiers.

That said, Kavli is a shrewd businessman, expecting that his endowed institutes serve as nucleuses, bringing in additional university funding as well as other funding (corporate, public, individual) to ensure their longevity.

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Freshly tenured faculty member Kit Parker gave a stirring talk on brain trauma as part of an SEAS alumni event. After serving several tours in Afghanistan, Parker, a bioengineer who specializes on heart tissue engineering, began investigating what happens to the brains of soldiers that are literally rattled by improved explosive devices (IEDs). Rather than neuronal death, he hypothesized, something else was going on (not a particularly popular view among the scientific community).

Professor Kit Parker in his other "lab."

He explained that initially, even as the devastating consequences of IEDs on soldiers became clear, traditional funding agencies did not step up to the plate. So, instead, he used discretionary money from the dean (i.e. private money that comprises the school's endowment) to support his initial investigations for several years. During that time, to build momentum for public funding, he testified in Congress about providing proper, cross-agency initiatives to foster such work. Someone was clearly listening.

Professor/Major Parker and VP Joe Biden.

A few days prior to his alumni chat, former Congressman Patrick Kennedy called for a "moonshot moment" to spur brain research. At a conference held in Boston to launch the endeavor, none other than Kit Parker was asked by Kennedy (a big fan of Parker's) to introduce attendee Vice President Joe Biden.  (For more, CNN profiled Parker's role in Kennedy's initiative.)

While roundabout, one expects that government funding for research on brain trauma will finally gain proper traction.

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Finally, the Boston Globe ran an article on the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard, offering yet another perspective on funding research.

Fueled with a record $125M gift by businessman Hansjorg Wyss, the institute aims to serve as a kind of "middleware" between academia and industry, between translational and market-ready science and engineering.

Here's a telling story about recent SEAS Ph.D. graduate Omar Ali:

As a graduate student at Harvard University, Omar Ali built a prototype of a cancer vaccine — a spongelike plastic implant that could train the body’s immune system to attack a tumor. The vaccine prevented mice from developing melanoma, and Ali was excited about the potential it could work in human cancer patients.

Ali continued working on the project as a post-doctoral researcher and got more exciting results, but saw no clear path to push his idea to the next step. So the bioengineer went to work at a start-up company, where he thought he would have a better chance of using his knowledge and skills to help people.

In January, however, Ali joined the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, attracted back to academia by its cross-disciplinary approach. The institute works to bridge the gap between promising basic research advances and the robotic technologies, drugs, novel building materials, or medical devices that change the world.

With the changing landscape of industry-based research arms that used to support basic research in the physical and engineering sciences (e.g., Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, etc.), places like the Wyss might well end up being an answer for the 21st-century.

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To conclude, I think research funding will increasingly take the form of "hybrid" models. The President's "sputnik moment" and Kennedy's "moonshot" may get us into orbit and allow us to see just the edge of the stars. Virgin Galatic may, however, get us the rest of the way---with no doubt, a lovely selection of beverages to boot.