Money for science

Read the text and answer the questions here.

Funding of scientific research is always a controversial issue, whether it is the amount or the source of the funding that is being considered. The graph below shows the amount of funding contributed by the public sector (i.e. the government) and the private sector (such as business and industry) in America from 1953 to the present.

Looking first at government funding, the graph shows that there was a substantial steady increase from $9 billion in 1953 to the mid 1960s, reaching a peak of $54 billion in 1967. Between 1967 and 1975 it gradually decreased to about $42 billion dollars per year. After 1975, funding slowly rose then significantly increased from 1982 and peaked in 1987 before falling steadily and levelling off around 1993. Since 1993 funding levels have remained roughly constant at about $60 billion per year.

Now considering funding from the private sector, it can be seen from the graph that until just over twenty years ago private funding was lower than government funding, starting at less than $7 billion in 1953. It rose slowly and steadily until 1985 where it levelled off slightly before increasing considerably between 1988 and 1991. It levelled off again in the early 1990s and then has risen dramatically since 1994. Overall, private sector funding, except for some small fluctuations in the 1980s and 90s, seems to be growing exponentially, with no signs of slowing down in the near future.

Many people think that this is not an ideal situation, saying that most of the funding should come from the government. They argue that commercialisation of research is inevitable if the funding comes from private companies. This, they say, means that potentially beneficial research might suffer if companies don’t think it is profitable. Supporters of private research point out that more research is being done now than ever before, mainly due to the vast amounts of money spent by large companies. Either way, it looks like private sector funding of research is here to stay and will only increase further in the future.