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I believe that whoever is in charge of federal funding in R&D will have to be extremely smart and balanced in his views because R&D plays a great role in the economy and future of this country. The right approach is a balanced between fundamental and applied research. And it's not just balanced but which areas to invest money into.

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I think that the government would be better served to spend money researching fundamental science, that seems to me to be the great shortfall of industry.

Intel, Westinghouse, biotech in general, and Dow do a pretty good job on the applied piece IMHO.

>Intel, Westinghouse, biotech in general, and Dow do a pretty good job on the applied piece IMHO.

Private companies are in a great position to do applied research, but they are often slow or unwilling to distribute the research results for the benefit of everyone.

They actually do a good job of that as well, it's just that they do it in the form of patents which means that you have to pay to benefit from their work.

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