The use of basic science: Can it be left to others? Lessons from Japan?
by C.H. Llewellyn Smith,
former Director-General of CERN
The question whether basic research can be left to others began to be asked in the 1980s, especially in the USA, when many science-based markets were lost to Japan, including very sophisticated areas such as dynamic access random memory, and the question was even raised whether the US semiconductor industry could survive at all. Japan (together with Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea) was often quoted as a country that had been very successful economically, and captured science-based markets, but had supported applied research and product development rather than basic science.
As it happens, the US semiconductor industry did not die, and while commentators were predicting its demise, US researchers were creating revolutionary new markets in biotechnology, multimedia, computer software and digital communications, etc. Meanwhile the Japanese economy has, of course, been in relative decline since 1989.
In any case the Japanese Government has no wish to leave basic research to others, and the Science and Technology Basic Plan, published in 1996, foresees a 50% increase in science funding in five years (although the initial rate of increase has not been maintained). Furthermore, earlier arguments based on comparative levels of investment in R&D as a percentage of GDP in the USA and Japan have been re-examined (ref. 17). The data
USA |
2.7%, 53% of which private - much in defence, % in basic research |
|---|---|
Japan |
2.9%, 81% of which private - more than in the USA in absolute terms, little in basic research |
had been used to argue that the larger Japanese investment in applied science and technology was the origin of Japan's economic success in the 1980s.
However, the figures for overall non-residential capital investment as a percentage of GDP
|
1980 |
1990 |
|---|---|---|
USA |
13% |
10% |
Japan |
15% |
19% |
suggest a different conclusion. The factors that fuel economic growth are the supply of labour and capital. Labour markets having been stable, growth might be expected to be proportional to total investment, and therefore on the basis of these figures some one-and-a-half times higher in Japan than in the USA. In fact, however, sustainable growth is estimated to be 3% in Japan compared to 2.5% in the USA.
It therefore seems that the Japanese economy is considerably less efficient than the US economy (similarly in Singapore, for example, growth has been three times that in the USA, but investment has been four or five times as large). Reversing the traditional arguments, it has even been suggested (ref. 17) that the relative inefficiency of the Japanese economy is due to the facts that there is less emphasis on basic research, and that the universities in Japan are weaker than in the USA!
This argument is not particularly convincing (many other macro-economic factors are involved, not least the fact that Japan has a national bank that has even outdone the Bundesbank in refusing to reflate during a recession). However, the case of Japan provides no evidence to support the alternative hypothesis that reducing public support for universities or de-emphasising basic research would be a wise economic policy.
