Why are such projects always coordinated as one big blob? Isn't it possible to just fund startups that are active in this industry, and see which one survives? Of course there should be regulation to a specific degree. VCs are doing the same, and it seems to be working (for the VCs).
> VCs are doing the same, and it seems to be working (for the VCs).
Well, you don't want that in science. The point of startups (from VC's point of view) is to make money for VC - startups themselves and their survival is irrelevant. The point of research is to gain knowledge and not to make money. That's two completely different kinds of thinking.
Because in Europe the belief that important and wide research should be carried out by "public" research is much stronger than, say, USA. Also while we have seen a somewhat invading process of privatisations ( :( ), European universities are still largely owned publicly and financed via public funding, therefore most [public] moeny for research should and will be directed to them for the time being.
You could then argue that it's not as efficient as the VC model, but:
- I haven't seen any study confirming such thing
- It doesn't seem easy to achieve a reasonable compromise between open research and R&D protectionism unless you are a big company
- Academia, even with all its politics and problems, is still a fast and active environment for scientific research
