Hello Joao,

you're asking a really complicated question.

I can mainly answer from the perspective of the Europe and North America. In those, countries, publications are not the only target of university researchers, but acquisition of funding plays a major role as well. And for many funding sources, there needs to be at least some vision of possible use of the research outcomes for society, even for many types of government funding.

There are also many types of funding that require involvement of industrial partners.

However, companies do also have an own agenda that includes considerations such as IP. Like that, most companies such as my employer are quite interested in working with academic partners in so-called precompetitive research. When it comes to real products, however, most companies are rather reluctant to do this under the auspices of a public project in order to generate their own IP (some of which is usually confidential). Like that, a benefit for society in form of products directly developed in university research, might be rather seldom even when published research may have provided a key basis for a later industrial product.

Greetings from Germany

Niko 

Hi, Nikolaus,

Thank you very much for your answer. Very elucidative! 

I think my vision was a little blinded by the place I am immersed in. Here in Brazil, most of the good Universities are public funded and managed. And the funding agencies(also most of them are managed and funded by the government) are not so restritive about the kind of projects they fund. They have a focus on breadth rather than giving large fundings to specific very useful projects. And the metric for deciding who gets funding is mostly decided by the publication historic of the researcher.

The result of this is that Universities have become paper machines and the scientific contributions usually are left to second place.

I am kind of wanting to find a way(or create one) to do research that matters without the inefficiencies of this system. So I am trying to gather the maximum information that I can.

Again, thank you very much for your answer.

Best Regards from Brazil,

João Marcos

Dear Joao Marcos Gris,

I thank you for your very important question.

I want to discuss your key phrase "The result of this is that Universities have become paper machines and the scientific contributions usually are left to second place. I am kind of wanting to find a way(or create one) to do research that matters without the inefficiencies of this system. So I am trying to gather the maximum information that I can".

You ask about "How to find a way(or create one) to do research that matters without the inefficiencies of this system".

Using this opportunity, I'd want to offer my way to resolve this problem properly.

In my view, the 21st century should become a Century of Developments.

From this point of view, we have to revise our traditional views on today's science. My views is the following:

a) The term "Research" should be reviewed and replaced by the concept of "Research + Technology"

b) The term "Paper" shall be replaced by the concept of "Development"

c) All developments should be available in the Internet as the "Online Tools" (Functional Websites)

My more detailed answers can be seen from the links:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_dont_developers_use_the_best_research_on_software_development

https://www.researchgate.net/post/In_todays_scenario_is_RESEARCH_is_for_the_sake_of_RESEARCH

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Does_peer-review_require_all_referees_acceptance_to_get_the_work_published

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_Researchers_community_is_not_collaborative_as_much_as_developers_community

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_difference_between_science_and_innovation

https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_can_we_differentiate_Innovation_and_Research_Development