Crossed Wires : The plan to defund research universities

On 21 July, a small volcano erupted under the most noble of institutions — the research university. It came in the form of a 123-page document unveiled by Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and it was called Science: A New Golden Age. The document was not widely covered in the press. A surprise, because it proposes a complete upending of how science is funded, what the role of government is, and the long-unquestioned nature of the academic/research/industrial complex. If fully implemented (which is nearly certain in the US and will probably be followed elsewhere), it will be a spectacular disruption of long-held assumptions about how scientific knowledge is nurtured. Few human institutions have run for four centuries with their operating…