Private sector Nobel Prizes

Even IBM in the 1980’s allowed researchers to try to measure the mass of the neutrino, the smallest and least interactive of nuclear particles. The supposed justification was if the neutrino had mass then the universe might not go on forever and IBM would not have a continuing business.

The last 15 years have not seen more prizes going to the big industrial research laboratories. Part of the explanation may be that IBM and Bell Laboratories are changed companies. IBM no longer dominates computing. Lucent Technologies, the successor to AT&T struggles with Bell Laboratories.

Also the culture has changed. The big corporations used to reflect the East Coast US philosophy of corporations doing and controlling everything relevant to their business. This might include a central research laboratory that could be a reflection of university departments. But, with the West Coast corporations, the approach was more co-operative with technology spread over a number of independent companies, many acting as suppliers of components or equipment. As the centre of technical innovation moved to California, the East Coast businesses lost their markets and their corporate model was abandoned.

Thus we now see Intel, Microsoft, Cisco and others, all the equal financially of the older East Coast corporations. There may not be a central research function. Laureates have emerged from this distributed system. The integrated circuit was a prize winning device and Kary Mullis (1993), inventor of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) while at Cetus, now part of Chiron, is perhaps the first of a line from the new biology frontier.

Unlike Einstein, Marshall and Warren, these industrial researchers did not make their discoveries in their own time. Their research directors encouraged them to explore their fields, even though few discoveries directly benefited their corporations. It was part of the corporate culture of the time and it brought great kudos to the organisation. It may have helped recruit bright engineers and scientists.

In Australia in the 1990’s, BHP closed a number of research centres, as did ICI.

What of the Australian government? Do these events point to a new approach to national needs, distributed research funding and to reappraising the role of the CSIRO?

For policy makers, the private sector achievements are an example of the likely success of national needs. Corporations have corporate needs but scientific research frequently delivers to a wider community without direct or immediate benefit to the corporation. Discoveries achieve technical utility through diverse pathways. Finally from the West Coast of the US there are signs that plurality is important in creating a more vibrant technical and business environment.