MIT Professor Gives A Dire Warning to the U.S. About Funding Science

In Brief In a video shared by Bill Gates, Broad Institute director Eric Lander warns that the decline of support for private and public research sectors could lead to the U.S. falling behind as a global leader in research and innovation.

They say there’s no alternative to hard work, but most researchers probably wouldn’t turn down the opportunity for more collaborative research that’s well-funded. That’s the philosophy behind what the Broad Institute at MIT calls the Miracle Machine. The Miracle Machine produces amazing advances in science and technology as a result of federal support an funding for the public and private sectors of the research community. However, as a video narrated by Broad Institute director Eric Lander explains, one of America’s greatest assets is “falling into disrepair.”

Microsoft founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates retweeted Lander’s post that linked to the video, echoing some of its major points. One of which is that research can do wonders for the “economy, health, energy, and defense” of the United States — or any nation for that matter.

Investing in basic scientific research drives remarkable returns for America’s economy, health, energy, and defense. https://t.co/oVvgy63Nuy — Bill Gates (@BillGates) June 28, 2017

Unfortunately, federal support for research has been dwindling. Over the past decade, funding for a number of research institutions has been on the decline, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) which has lost 25 percent of its budget over the past 13 years. The most recent budget proposed by the U.S. Congress wouldn’t do much to improve those number, either.

In the same way that this private and public sector partnership pushed basic scientific research forward, much to the benefit of many sectors in the U.S., the decline in federal support will have a ripple effect across several industries. “We may wake up to find the next generation of technologies, and industries […] are being produced elsewhere,” Lander points out in the video. With Europe, China, Dubai, and other nations investing more in scientific research rather than less, it isn’t a stretch to think that the U.S. could fall behind.