Is industry investment in university research likely to see significant increases?
Probably not, particularly in basic research. Industry is going to leave long-term baseline research to the universities, although it may try to help occasionally in funding. I think what you will hear from industry is this, “We pay our taxes. They should go to developing the understanding base, and then we will take advantage of that.” And, I think that is probably a pretty good answer. What role can and should the Regents play in communicating public policy issues such as the value of education and research to the public, to the Congress and to the legislators? I can’t think of a group that’s more important. The Regents have to be the intermediaries between the University and the Legislature. Legislators, in general, don’t understand the culture of the research university. It is very important to continually educate them as well as to educate all members of American society. People from the academic enterprise must be the ones to educate legislators because no one else is going to do
