I have an article in The Conversation this morning arguing that policy over the last quarter century has made public universities more public than they would otherwise have been. Without external pressures, academics and universities would focus on a narrower range of objectives than governments and public opinion would prefer.

In response, Gavin Moodie observes

I am concerned at the diminution in the importance of pure basic research in Australian universities, which is now very much a minority activity. This is particularly worrying since while there are many other bodies established to conduct applied research, there is no other institution to conduct pure basic research.

While the share of all research that is ‘pure’ (definitions here) has gone down (see yesterday’s post), looking at the absolute spending gives a somewhat different picture. Spending on pure research doubled in real terms between 1992 and 2012, but this is a much lower growth rate than for the more applied types of research.

Source: ABS

Although I don’t think the trend is as negative as Gavin perhaps does, I have some sympathy for his broader point. While public universities can and should do more than academics are inclined to, their comparative advantage compared to other institutions is likely to be at the more pure end of research. If the government wants more applied research, it should probably steer much of that funding to more specialised organisations with clear commercialisation/practical problem solving goals.