In a world where the UK is competing not only with the United States and Europe but with emerging science powerhouses like China and India, science policy needs to become more prominent, but more importantly it needs to become more sophisticated.
Basic scientific research lays the groundwork for many innovations.
It is conducted in the pursuit of knowledge, normally without a final application in mind. For example, it wasn't until many decades after the pioneering work of Faraday, Kirchhoff, Boltzmann and Planck on quantum mechanics that a range of applications such as transistors and lasers were developed.
Basic scientific research has many of the characteristics of a public good: it yields benefits that are general rather than specific to individual products, and generates economic returns which cannot be captured by any single business entrepreneur.
Published
June 2007
Author
NESTA
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