Priceless Results

In the conditions that the financial crisis has brought, shortages in jobs have become a popular trend, and those who have maintained their position are being paid less. If the businessmen and bankers are suffering, it is rather logical to think that the scientists hardly survive. Even if the statement that they have gained profit out of the crisis is wrong, the consequences of the economic fall aren’t that harsh for physicists, chemists, and mathematicians than probably expected.

Usually, whenever someone is talking about the financial crisis, the word “losses” is mentioned. But scientific research is unprofitable in any case, especially when talking about fundamental sciences. This well-known thesis has been illustrated with numbers, that the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) presented in their recent research.

The authors of this work calculated how much money URMC is spending on the work of 25 researches, that worked from 1999 to 2004. This is how exactly the authors of the document estimated the “cost” of the employees. At the university, the scientist “procured” money for his work by getting grants from various financing organizations (that money went to the purchase of new equipment and to their salaries). Besides, some researchers earned money for their direct work (such as payments for patents or financial aid from other sponsors). But, that source of wealth gives much less.

The costs of the activities of the researchers were also composed out of different factors. First, some amount was spent on each employee so that he could start his work. Second, during their work, the scientists used the resources of the university, such as electricity, water, rents (of machines), *coughcoffeecough*, and so on.

After some calculations, the authors came to a result that on every dollar that the researchers from different sources, the URMC had to spend their own 40 cents. To close that pit, the university dragged money from the other departments.

Medical research is a relatively profitable branch of scientific studies. If sale of medicine enables partly recouping the cost of developing them, the astronomers have no such opportunity. The realization of space programs are require much money, because most, if not all instruments use the newest (read: most expensive) technologies, that don’t give a direct profit until much later.

Recently, a control was made on how efficient the space agency is. It showed that for each dollar that NASA spent on research, the profit was only 36 cents. While other federal agencies, for each spent dollar give the U.S. in average 9.49 dollars.

Because of the constant deficiency of budget in NASA even before the crisis, it was necessary to delay or cancel some of its projects. Starting from year 2004, the main “money vacuum ” was the program on development of new space transport, called “Constellation”. Because of that, in year 2007, NASA said no to the program that would track asteroids that could possibly hit the Earth. No comment.

There are victims among non-related to space programs as well. 2 out of 3 research groups weren’t given financial support for work with hybrid embryos. The law, that gave a legal status to manipulations of embryos, has been highly discussed in the media. It was approved by the British parliament in the end of 2008. Cytoplasmic hybrids, that are gotten by placing the nucleus of a human cell into an animal cell, are necessary for the scientists to get embryonic stem cells. The research of them is a rather promising direction, as it theoretically can help in finding a cure for such diseases as Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. 

The formal reason of the refusal to give the funding was the funding of other projects, that were prioritized. Possibly, this decision was made because of the pressure from the scientists that consider work with hybrid embryos unethic. Another possibility is the fact that there wasn’t enough money because of the crisis.

Reasonably, the biggest concerns about the continuation of a certain project are about the Large Hardon Collider. The huge collider (whose tunnel is 27 kilometers long) was stopped briefly 10 days after its start because of an accident that resulted in a failure in the supplying electrical system. The estimated sum needed for the repair is at least 21 millions of dollars. Can the physicists afford that sum is a big question.

When it comes to the scientists themselves, and not their projects, it turned out that they were better off compared to workers in other fields. The result of a recent research showed that the salaries of scientific workers is comparable, and sometimes even higher than the salaries of other workers. Also, the position of a scientist that has a long-term contract is relatively stable,compared to people that work in non-scientific fields.

On the other hand, the researchers aren’t people that have to get used to survive in scarce financial conditions. The secret behind the “firmness” of the scientists is the fact that money isn’t their main goal. The most important part for them is the process of the research itself. And because of that, they are one of the only people that aren’t afraid of the crisis.