Comments on: Walled Gardens http://www.inkspotscience.com/blog/index.php/2009/04/02/walled-gardens/ Collaboration between scientists, in any field, anywhere. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:36:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: SpinOnThis http://www.inkspotscience.com/blog/index.php/2009/04/02/walled-gardens/#comment-54 SpinOnThis Wed, 20 May 2009 17:01:23 +0000 http://www.inkspotscience.com/blog/?p=21#comment-54 Universities are obsessed by spin-out companies, even though I don't see how they can be making any money from it, judging by the legions of staff that Universities employ to deal with spin-out and licensing, and presumably paid from research overheads, i.e by the taxpayer. Even worse, the commercialisation of research is even listed as a researcher's responsibility under principle 5 of the UK Research Concordat. The top 3 responsibilities as listed by this document are: 1. Researchers are employed to advance knowledge and should exercise and develop increased capacity for independent, honest and critical thought throughout their careers. 2. Researchers should develop their ability to transfer and exploit knowledge where appropriate and facilitate its use in policy making and the commercialisation of research for the benefit of their employing organisation, as well as the wider society and economy as a whole. 3. Researchers should recognise their responsibility to conduct and disseminate research results in an honest and ethical manner and to contribute to the wider body of knowledge. My reading of this is that UK Universities think that the commercialisation of research is more important than conducting research in an honest and ethical manner. In other words, the whoring out of IP is more officially more important than good research! The Concordat may be found here: http://www.researchconcordat.ac.uk/documents/concordat.pdf Universities are obsessed by spin-out companies, even though I don’t see how they can be making any money from it, judging by the legions of staff that Universities employ to deal with spin-out and licensing, and presumably paid from research overheads, i.e by the taxpayer.

Even worse, the commercialisation of research is even listed as a researcher’s responsibility under principle 5 of the UK Research Concordat. The top 3 responsibilities as listed by this document are:

1. Researchers are employed to advance
knowledge and should exercise and develop
increased capacity for independent, honest and
critical thought throughout their careers.
2. Researchers should develop their ability to
transfer and exploit knowledge where appropriate
and facilitate its use in policy making and the
commercialisation of research for the benefit of
their employing organisation, as well as the wider
society and economy as a whole.
3. Researchers should recognise their responsibility
to conduct and disseminate research results in an
honest and ethical manner and to contribute to
the wider body of knowledge.

My reading of this is that UK Universities think that the commercialisation of research is more important than conducting research in an honest and ethical manner. In other words, the whoring out of IP is more officially more important than good research!

The Concordat may be found here:

http://www.researchconcordat.ac.uk/documents/concordat.pdf

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