"Banking on a Ph.D. 'Ecosystem' to Drive New Economies"

I ran across this recent piece in the Times about how many countries are investing in graduate education as a way of stimulating their economies.

Australia and Canada are focusing on boosting PhD enrollment wholesale. Does this sound familiar?

Nigel Palmer of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations said the government was responding to a looming demographic threat: a large number of top Australian university teachers and researchers are now five to seven years away from retirement. “This is about the training of future academics,” Mr. Palmer said. “The inquiry basically said we need to do more to attract, retain and employ research students.”

If, like Australia and Canada, your stated goal is short term payoff, throwing lots of money at primarily basic research is the wrong approach. Investing in basic research is a very long term strategy. Most of what is discovered is not particularly useful. Every now and then something really important comes along, but figuring out how to commercialize new discoveries can take years or even decades.

Ireland seems to be taking a much smarter approach in that they are building partnerships between government, universities, and industry. They recognize that it's important not just to foster discovery, but also to ensure that useful discoveries make it out into the world:

One approach that Mr. Lee is advocating for Ireland centers on empowering postdoctoral researchers and young professors to start their own companies.... “The best starting place in the absence of a strong entrepreneurial community is to train the scientist to do this,” Mr. Lee said. The goal is to turn Ph.D.’s into savvier businessmen and women.

Looks like an approach worth watching.