History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
Koty Lapid
Beer Sheva, Israel, KotyLapid@softblock.net
Commercialisation of Public Research and Personal Science
'Content' became commodity a long time ago. First there was a physical 'content' later a ‘non-physical’ content, like service that accompanied physical content. The price for the ‘physical content’ has been established during centuries. Later part of the service became larger and larger till the 'content' now contains mostly non-physical content, knowledge. The evaluation of the appropriate price of the ‘Knowledge’ is a very recent phenomena. Major companies struggling with evaluation of the exact price of their Knowledge content. Today there are two main types of pricing for Knowledge content. 'Content' can be 'royalty free', and for it one pays a one time sum. 'Content' can be 'rights-protected content' and then there is a need to renegotiate the price of the 'content' every time somebody uses that content. Anyway, the 'idea generation' ownership for the ‘content’ always remains of the 'original idea generator'. Usage of the content is based on the categorization if it 'royalty free' or 'rights-protected'.
‘Content’ created by universities and by publicly founded research from the 70s got recognized not just as important addition to the public science but as an important vehicle generating private profit. There are several mechanisms for generating private profit. One of them is allowing establishment of private small companies for university professors. Another is making profit from the research that is carried on by ‘co-operated research forms’ between universities and Big Companies. The right amount of ‘co-operation’ between Universities and Big Companies is still under debate. The right amount of activity in the ‘academicals entrepreneurial field’ is still under debate. The problem is that the debate on the mechanism of the compensation for the Knowledge generation by independent scientist is has not yet even started.
Nowadays independent scientists have access almost to the same tools that provided public institutions with their successful researches. The tools are finding background information on the Internet, finding partners in the scientific community in order to clarify issues of the research, statistical tools etc. Independent scientists using these tools are capable today of achieving excellent results in research work, as is the public sector. Consequently, Global Scientific community should provide a framework for the Independent Scientist.
I believe that it is time we face the following issues:
Knowledge created by independent scientists should be able to receive appropriate fiscal compensation. Knowledge created by independent scientists should be able to receive recognition whenever it deserves it.
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006