Pasteur’s Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation, by Donald E. Stokes, explores the need for application-oriented basic science and the roles of scientists, research evaluation systems, and the state in establishing it, and criticizes the side effects and ambiguity of the criteria.
The Pasteur Quadrant, or Pasteur Quadrant, refers to “use-inspired basic science” that is not biased toward either basic science or practical value. If scientific research is organized into four quadrants along two axes, basic and applied, Edison would be categorized as “research for application” and Bohr as “purely basic research”. Pasteur is categorized as ‘basic research for application’. He studied the theory of the cell, but he also tried to put it to practical use, working on fermentation techniques and diseases. The authors of this book argue for a “utilization-oriented basic science” like Pasteur’s, which breaks away from the dichotomy of dividing science into “basic science” and “applied science.” They also argue that policies for modern science should be determined in this paradigm. To this end, the book identifies the role of scientists, the role of research evaluation systems, and the role of the state, respectively, in order for ‘utilization-oriented basic science’ to flourish and become established.
First, the authors argue that scientists need to be actively involved. To do this, they need to understand “why basic science struggles in the marketplace. Realizing the scientific implications of specialized and specific research requires a vast scientific background, while realizing the practical implications is relatively easy. This creates a large knowledge asymmetry between researchers and those who actually support the research. The authors argue that, in general, the closer the research is to basic science, the more difficult it is to understand, which is why it requires the active involvement of scientists to define social needs. For example, Pasteur emphasized the need for public hygiene by incorporating the concept of milk into the otherwise disconnected concept of public health, and a chemist named Mario Molina worked tirelessly to bring the world’s attention to the dangers of ozone depletion.
The authors also emphasize the importance of peer review systems. Research should be evaluated by peers who work in similar fields, not by third parties who are completely unrelated to the field of research. In this way, peers evaluate not only the scientific significance of the research, but also the benefits it brings to society and allocate funding. However, the book acknowledges that this system has inevitable limitations. Researchers tend to favor old methods over new ones, well-known researchers over unknown ones, and large institutions over small ones. To overcome many of these limitations, the authors suggest renaming peer review to merit review, and argue that despite these shortcomings, the benefits of a peer review system are significant.
The role of the government is also addressed. The debate over whether the NSF, a national organization that supports pure basic science, should also support applied science has been going on since the 1950s. The argument for supporting applied science was based on the need to maintain the curiosity-driven and discipline-centered research of the organization’s early years, and the concern that if applied science began to be funded, it would eventually crowd out basic science. The authors attribute this debate to the “postwar paradigm” that pervades society, which divides science into basic and applied sciences. They argue that the role of the state is to pursue basic research aimed at utilization, to ensure that this research does not degenerate into applied research with blurred goals, and to establish such research. They also emphasize the importance of ensuring that strategic research does not lose its disciplinary integrity.
In fact, the book does not explain why we need ‘application-oriented basic science’, but rather how to establish it based on the premise that we need ‘application-oriented basic science’. However, the author’s reasons for advocating for ‘application-oriented basic science’ are revealed in the course of the narrative, so I would like to argue that we should not create a social paradigm that pursues ‘application-oriented basic science’.
If we pursue ‘application-oriented basic science’, the role of the government in scientific research may change. This book advocates for a structure in which the government is the sole funder of research, and the government supports research based on the usefulness of the research. However, there is a contradiction between limiting the source of funding to the government and the government’s pursuit of the usefulness of research. The authors only discuss the government as a source of research funding and exclude corporate funding from the discussion. However, in reality, corporations are just as influential in funding academia as governments, and some fields are funded solely by corporations without government support. In fact, at Seoul National University in South Korea, the amount of research funding from private companies is 1.5 times that of the government.
In the book, the author portrays applied science as not being supported enough because the government honors basic science. In reality, however, applied science receives ample private support from corporations, and basic science is perpetuated by government funding. Since corporations are inherently profit and utility driven, they tend to support application-oriented basic science where the utility is readily apparent. Therefore, it is the role of governments to respect and support basic science where the utility is not immediately apparent. If the government is also looking for the usefulness of research, it could become just another giant corporation looking to make a profit. Instead of looking for usefulness in basic science, governments need to honor its inherent value.
Also, the author’s definition of “application-oriented basic science” is unclear throughout the book. It can be seen as a discipline that exists between basic and applied research. However, there are no clear criteria to distinguish between basic and applied science. In particular, the criteria for recognizing basic research with a certain degree of practicality as ‘utilization-oriented basic science’ is highly subjective. It is difficult to establish formalized criteria, and the process of categorizing and funding research can be highly controversial. In the end, whether all research is basic or applied is a question that lies on a spectrum. In this sense, the book’s overarching argument for advancing “utilization-oriented basic science” can be seen as a fuzzy claim that is merely an ideal.
Finally, there is a risk that the autonomy of basic science will be compromised if it is emphasized only as an application-oriented science. The authors are not arguing that ‘application-oriented basic science’ should be recognized and promoted alongside basic science, but that all basic science research should be application-oriented. However, this has a major side effect. It is difficult to determine the short-term usefulness of basic science, and the more basic the research that underpins a discipline, the more difficult it is to find immediate usefulness. Therefore, it is not advisable to use basic science, the cornerstone of all applied disciplines, as a benchmark for usefulness.
