Published 2026-03-31
How to Cite
Copyright (c) 2026 Pierandrea Lo Nostro
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Across evaluation panels for funding and job positions and strategic research agendas a clear pattern has emerged: scientific research is increasingly expected to justify itself through immediate applicability. Grant calls emphasize industrial partnerships, technological transfer, measurable impact, and short-term deliverables. Proposals are routinely evaluated and selected not only for their intellectual value but largely for their potential to generate marketable products, policy instruments, or societal solutions within tight timeframes. The emphasis on applicability is comprehensible but on its own it cannot justify the current trend. Basic science—driven by curiosity rather than by immediate use—is the foundation upon which applied innovation ultimately rests.
References
- [1] Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, a revolutionary gene-editing technology derived from a natural defense mechanism in bacteria. It acts as a precise, fast, and economical molecular tool to modify, delete, or regulate DNA sequences in living organisms.
- [2] J.S. Reid, C.H.-T Wang, J.M.T. Thompson. “James Clerk Maxwell 150 years on”. Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci 2008, 366, 1651–1659. DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2007.2196.