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# The Challenges of Basic Research in Higher Education

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## Video: The Challenges of Basic Research in Higher Education

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_Published 2013-09-20. Subra Suresh, President of Carnegie Mellon University, moderates this panel at the 2013 TIME Summit on Higher Education_


---

Jul 27, 2023 3:46 PM UTC

---

## More From This Series

[All Videos](https://time.com/video/)

[Shaping The Future of Higher Education in America](/video/RfYE3pzE/)

### Shaping The Future of Higher Education in America

[Ralph Cicerone: The Value of Research in Higher Education](/video/jqBxey7X/)

### Ralph Cicerone: The Value of Research in Higher Education

[All Hands on Deck for Higher Education](/video/EOYG5qkm/)

### All Hands on Deck for Higher Education

---


## Transcript

[ MUSIC ] Good morning. I'm Subra Suresh, president of Carnegie Mellon University. I'm really delighted to join this very distinguish panel Doctor Susan Haughtfield is unable to join us this morning, so there is five of us onstage this morning. The topic of our panel this morning is basic research. And the panel. That follows us right after our panel is the cost of excellence I wanted to make four points related to basic science before we go to our distinguished panelists. First is investments, second is people. Third is related to people attracting talent. Fourth is borderless knowledge enterprise.

And how do these things connect to all the issues that have already been raised, last night and this morning, with respect to basic science? So last year, let me start with a story, last year. Just before my required Congressional testimony to Congress as Director of the National Science Foundation. I was asked by one of our elected officials, you're asking for $ 7. 4 billion, from Congress for NSF. That's a lot of money. Why do you need that kind of money? So I reflected on it quite a bit and I gave him an answer. But in the process I found a number of pieces of data. Last year, $ 7. 4 billion is a lot of money, but last years Americans spent 7, $ 7 billion on potato chips.

What has the $ 7 billion given us? So since 1950, when the National Science Foundation was founded, we have 201 Nobel Prize winners. American Nobel Prize winners who've had some portion of their Nobel Prize- winning work. Tied to NSF funding, just in 63 years. That's 70 % of all American Nobel laureates, and 35 % of all Nobel laureates since 1950 in all fields in which Nobel prizes are given. There is no other $ 7 billion that has been invested and appropriated by Congress. That has provided that kind of return on investment. So this was my response to him. And it's just NSF, you look at NIH, DOE, other agencies, the impact they've had.

So that's the first point I would like to make. Last year for the first time in the history of science funding. The top ten Asian countries invested more in R & D than the US did, this has never happened before, according to the National Science Board. So that's the challenge we have with respect to input and output. When we talk about people, item number 2. The most recent data that we have. The number of 18 year olds entering college, in all 50 states of the US, universities, community colleges, etc. Plus the number of students entering freshman year in all 27 countries of the European Union combined, plus the number of college freshmen in Japan.

The number one economy, the number three economy, and the number four economy in the world combined, equaled, the number of college freshmen entering universities in China alone, number two economy. Let's look at the output from college. 20 % of all the college graduates in China major in natural sciences and engineering. In Europe, it's about 11 to 12 %. In the US, in engineering, it's 4. 4 %. And 1. 4 % of all the college graduates in the US are women engineers, for half the population. So input and output is a problem. So the next question is, how did the US remain an innovation leader? That brings me to my third point, which is exactly what Ralph Ciceron started this morning with.

Despite this dismal trend with respect to number of people coming into engineering, we've done very well. That's because we could attract anybody from anywhere in the world to come here and stay here. I know that. I did that in 1977. Let me give you a little bit of data on that. In my graduating class from one of the most competitive institutions in the world, Indian Institute of Technology in Madras. 80 % came to the US and 80 % stayed here in 1977. Two months ago I went there to give a commencement speech. This year 16 % chose to come to the US even though 80 % could have come, and it's not the top 16 %.

So, attracting talent is going to be a very important issue for the future. The last point that I would like to make, is transformative changes, and especially the disconnect between input and output. Let's take knowledge dissemination, whether it's through MOOCs or other forms of online learning, or through open access to data and publication. The input to investment that creates the knowledge is local and national. The output of that knowledge has no boundaries. So the question is, who makes the policies? Who makes sure that others follow? Who decides and enforces these rules? More importantly who pays for it?

Right now nobody. And, we'll come to possible solutions to that let me stop at this point and go to a my colleagues for their thoughts on any of these issues and other that they want to talk about, Bob. [ COUGH ] Well, I'm just really going to give a vignette, and I'm gonna speak not as the chancellor or former chancellor of Berkeley, the macro level but at the micro level as a laboratory experimental physicist. So, in 2008 in combination of Japan and China, some extraordinary new materials were discovered completely unexpectedly which were magnetic materials but they are also superconductors and have a complex interaction between them and this was.

A major shock to the materials community. And so, after this discovery driven by my post docs, I decided to reorient my research toward this new, marvelous materials. Currently in the United States, researches on these materials is done at Stanford and Berkeley, at Iowa State and Oakridge National Lab. That's basically it. So a year ago in our group we made a discovery that we thought was quite important and we started to write a paper for one of the flagship journals. And in working on the paper I realized, discovered that literally 80 % of the citations of the references in this important new field were from universities in China.

and, there was, and I started looking up the papers, they're all published in English. All by young people, extraordinarily talented young people. So this field is now an important new field of science is dominated by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, by Chingwa, et cetera. A field that previously would have been dominated by Harvard and MIT and Berkeley, et cetera. Second part of the vignette is that, in my research group, I had two extraordinary post- docs that both happened to be undergraduates at Chingwa, both had done their PhDs in the United States. Each of them was Harvard or MIT Stanford etc.

caliber, prospective faculty members. And I strongly encouraged one of the two in particular to. Apply for a position at Berkeley. In both cases each in the end, looked at the life of an Assistant Professor at an American University and they said it's just too tough. So then why would we want to do that and one now is a tenured faculty member at Fudan University and the second is at Nanjing. They have their own research groups, they have a level of funding that basically is impossible for beginning faculty at, certainly Universities like Berkeley. This is a sea change. Ten years ago this would have not happened.

So this is really a quite precipitous and dramatic change in the nature of research research competition and career choices of young scientists. Thank, thank you, Bob. Robert, one of the areas that you are particularly interested in is a dissemination of science. Yes. And appreciation of science by the public and by elected officials. And that directly affects investments. It affects attracting people to come to science. It's also attracted people from all over the world to come here so I'd be interested in your thoughts on this. Well, perhaps, first as a very recent immigrant I'd say what makes this country still very attractive and just a little anecdote, when I first came here as a young graduate student, I met the big star in my field.

And what happened that he asked me what do you think that I should be working on and that had never happened to me before I think that that's one of the attitudes this country still has. It's very open to young people. It cherishes talent. And just to give an example for instance my own institution, less than 20 %. Of the faculty was born in the US, but almost all of them were recruited form top US Universities. So I think we should really realize that we are still doing a terrific job here in attracting the top talent. In terms of your question about the kind of, I was kind of, the public support for basic research.

I actually feel we are confronting here something what I like to call kind of the paradox of progress, because we are digging deeper and deeper in our research. And so superficially it kind of goes away from the public understanding, but of course definitely for instance in the life science and medical fields we, we know that actually these extra details, this extra research. Is actually making it even more applied. More directly relevant. So I think one thing that we definitely can do better is make clear that research universities are not only there for the benefit of students, of faculty, of staff, but actually it's a public service.

It's a public good. And I think universities have terrific opportunities to do so. Students could be key in making a bigger footprint in society. I think actually we feel something we all can do is enlarge the public support base for research just by explaining to everyone. What it's all about. Thank you Robert, as head of an institution that funds research in different parts of the country. We would be interested in your thoughts. Well I can continue in the thread of two ideas that have come out from our previous two speakers. One is, you know, what drew me to the United States right from the beginning, was the idea that very young students, and your experience is typical of that, but even more than getting opinions from the young people, we give them the independence to actually do what they want to do, so.

You know, the best laboratories, I think what really, separates the research environment in the US from most other places is that, students are actually allowed to follow their own notes. And we support that. And to me, one of the big challenges as a funder is how do we maintain that flow of brain power? And creativity. And right now, we're in some difficult times, because the most difficult period right now, why your post- docs left the United States, is because there is this big gap in the funding. They can't see how they're gonna get from here to there in order to become part of the faculty.

And so a big effort on the part of the Howard Hughes and other. Nonprofit funders of research and I, I wanna stress this it's not just basic research, because basic research leads to translational research. What we're trying to do is good science and good science is the foundation of both of those things. So I don't see a separation between them, But how to get young people really attracted to this? And last night we heard about the challenges of the MOOCs. I think that it's going to happen. We know we have to deal with it. We may actually get a higher pool of high quality students but the question is how do we get 'em into the laboratories, if that's where they wanna do it?

And I think the challenge for us over the next decades is how to make the experience of actually discovering, scientific information, part of that, learning experience? And so we've heard a little bit about that from the research universities that, that, that was spoken about last night. But we need to do that much better. As you can see, this panel is very carefully organized, because if your parents gave you a name that's not Robert, you get to sit at the end. [ LAUGH ] [ INAUDIBLE ] Harold. As Director of the National Institutes of Health in the 90s you saw a significant increase in the funding for the National Institutes of Health.

And the situation has changed in the last ten years and it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on. The impact that it has had on university research. Yeah, let me start with that, sir. Thank you very much. I think everybody in this room is aware that the NIH budget doubled over five years, between 98 and 2003. Since then there has been stagnation and then last year sequestration. In talking about this there have been many themes. One of course, is the attractiveness of being a scientist in America as opposed to somewhere else. Part of the conversation is about the opportunities lost to make great discoveries that would benefit our understanding of biological systems and the public health.

And part of it has been a description of the pain that's felt by investigators who are having trouble getting grants. What hasn't been so much part of the conversation, but is critical to the people in this room, is the fact that, the, that, through the NIH, the government supports, universities, infrastructure for doing research. Through indirect costs and through the direct costs of paying for research. And, I think it's important that we make a greater plea to Congress. After all, NIH can't be blamed for this. This is the, we get our money from Congress and the Administration. And, it is important to emphasize to them that one of America's great treasures.

Is the university system we have that sustains not just the research, but the research environment that's so critical to attracting talent and, and keeping folks here once they're trained. The second point I'd like to make has to do with how we get out of this problem that we're currently feeling. And. Clearly, increased appropriation would help. But I would point out that many of us who were thinking seriously about the nature of the research enterprise in the biomedical sciences are concerned that we have built an unsustainable environment, in which large numbers of investigators train large numbers of investigators.

Who hyper- populate the research environment, to the point where it's become hyper- competitive. And at the moment, at the NCI, which I direct, about 14 % of our grant applications can be funded. And this is a much lower than healthy number, but, but for sure. And that hyper- competition is not just a matter of creating anxieties and and and loss of of research support, it's also created an environment for doing science that's too cautious more conservative. Less risk taking it, there is a tendency to emphasize applied as opposed to more basic biological science at the time when we recognized how little we don't about basic phenomenon.

And it created a false value system in which undue emphasis is placed on where you publish your work and instead of understanding what that work is and its value might be. So these are all negatives that result from. The the very competitive atmosphere that has been created. The third point I make is that this meeting should be considered a starting point for rethinking what the relationship is between the university environment and, and the federal government that supports it. There are many aspects of what we do traditionally that were established many years ago. They're very difficult to change and fix.

But the way in which we support faculty's salaries with, with research money, the way in which we allocate money for indirect cost, the way which we, we provide incentives for universities to grow, sometimes, inappropriately. The way in which we've designed a an ecosystem for, for the growth of our enterprise that in the long run, I don't believe can be sustained. Or all things that contribute to the sense that it is difficult and, and sometimes painful to be a member of the scientific community in America, and that other countries may offer a. An environment that's, that's not just more comfortable, but more productive.

I wanna pick up two of the points that were made here. And perhaps we can amplify on them a little bit more. One was the, the ability to attract talent. Usually it's, taught in terms of. Talked about in terms of a people and sometimes its very esoteric so I was thinking of a argument for the US with respect to attracting talent. So one of the immigration bills is going through with respect to 100, 000 scientists, and engineers coming into the country. There are studies that show. That, that the cost to raise a child in the US, from birth to age 22, to the end of college is somewhere between $ 400, 000 and half a million dollars per child to age 22.

As Ralph mentioned this morning, about one quarter of all the members of the National Academy of Sciences and one quarter of the Nobel, American Nobel laureates. Came after their first degree somewhere else. So the annual infusion to the US Treasury of this is about $ 50 billion. If it's half a million dollar per person who is highly trained. Some other tax payer is paying for it. That's the economic argument. [ LAUGH ]. That one can make related to this. The second point that came up is The question about basic science, do you fund individual scholarship, and this is a question I was asked all the time.

In the case of mathematics, for example, you give small grants as individual scientists sitting in isolation in a room comes up with a brillant idea that can change the world. In the field of astronomy, you have big facilities. And the National Science Foundation has spent more than $ 1 billion in the country of Chile to make astronomical observations. Ground based observations. So the question is, do you do big science or small science? Where is the balance between the two? With respect to even basic science. And I was told about this very interesting example. President Kennedy talked about putting man on the moon and bringing him back safely that galvanized an entire generation to go into science.

But somebody pointed out that we put man on the moon, before we put wheels on the suitcase. And having wheels on the suitcase is a very important innovation as well, which is probably very useful on a day to day basis. So, we need both, we need innovations of all kinds, and basic science provides that. So, with those two points, I, I wanted to ask you, what do you think about the changing economic models? That are taking place with respect to both education, and also with respect to a borderless world where the knowledge created here can go anywhere with respect to basic science. [ COUGH ] So, first of all, going back to having been Chancellor of Berkeley, many of us believe that and that [ INAUDIBLE ] last night and First talk this morning many of us believe that the financial model for the support, especially of public research in the universities is broken and we're going to have to develop a new paradigm in the United States.

Secondly this current financial model for the support of basic research. Is also broken, because of increased pressures for short term, for short term gains. And many of us have many examples of which can go on and on, of important discoveries or important technologies which emerge from research where the person had no idea of what it would ultimately lead to. And so, we, we also are going to need a new model for the support of basic research. We believe that at least part of that needs to come from philanthropic community and from the, from the corporate community. This is a much longer discussion of, than we have time for in this panel but I know other people in, in the room, including two of us sitting on this panel are.

Out trying to organize and working hard. I'd like to give just one example, which is relevant to California and then I'll pass it on. If we just took 1 % of the money that California high- tech corporations have stored offshore. And just imagine that the federal government was willing to make a tax deal with, with Apple etcetera, on, on the basis that they devote 1 % of the money that they bring back through basic research. That would be in California, for California corporations. That would be, that would basically solve the problem. So, we have a big issue, but it's not that big normalized to other aspects of the economy, and I believe that there are solutions out there.

Of course, it will take a functional federal government in order to make that actually happen. [ LAUGH ] Robert? I think it's good to have a close look at, so to say, the competition, if you look at the the countries which are really innovation leaders, I think they're all very aggressively moving towards a model attracting top talent and do this you know, in all possible ways. And I think the US would have has a terrific position there but they are not moving that aggressively, and also about your point of you know, what facilitates research, and how should you kind of, put your portfolio in terms of individual, a larger collaborations.

For instance, reporting from the old countries, European Union has been. Very successfully in establishing these very large individual grants from the European research council, that have been, a very strong argument for people to return back to Europe. And it's, it's remarkable in some sense that there is not a similar instrument. In this country, and I think we see, so we see other countries moving very fast looking at the US, taking the best practices. And stepping up and so, and they moving very fast. So I think actually this should, also be a wake up call to this country. To kind of take action.

Well two questions that you raised I think are, are worth like, elaborating on. One is, we do have, one advantage still which is that the philanthropic efforts in this country are greater than almost any other country and they realized the importance of universities and of basic research. And so, in fact. A number of the largest funders of research of all kinds, physical as well as life sciences, have gotten to together Voluntarily to try to see if we can actually double the amount of money that can be put into research, basic research. Right now we estimate. The private nonprofit foundations not counting universities, are probably putting in about $ 1 and half billion a year, which is small compared to the NIH budget, but quite significant when you look at the impact.

We'd like to double or triple that in the next five years, and I think that's entirely doable, but we have to take the message. Very clearly to new foundations and new high net wealth, worth people. The second thing that you bring up, which is this dichotomy of should we give, you know, single individuals sitting in a room, thinking about something very clever versus big teams. And clearly, it's not either or. We have. Right. To do both. At the Howard Hughes we've very specifically gone after both models. One is where we, our most successful project is so called our Hughes, our Howard Hughes investigators which are individuals.

So we are all about the people. Our motto, is people not projects. That's what drives. Our identification of talent. But at the same time, another part of the rapidly moving basic research is, innovation not only in discovery, but technology. So microscopy, for example. The type of microscopy that we're now capable of doing. Seems so amazing that you can see individual molecules in individual live cells doing their thing in real time. Something we couldn't even imagine just five years ago. That comes from teamwork because you have to have physicists, you have to have engineers, you have to have mathematicians and biologists all get together.

So I think both. Are very powerful. We actually do that petty well in this country, but again, it's how to get those young people to understand how their efforts are going to be appreciated by the team work. And okay, well, being at the end of this this tribune here, I'm reduced to footnotes, but I'm gonna make four. [ LAUGH ] First, with respect to attracting talent, there's been a lot of emphasis on attracting talent from abroad, and I'm a huge supporter of, of that effort. But I think we don't, we shouldn't be neglecting the fact that we're not attracting our own best talent. Women, young people see biomedical scientists struggling to get a grant, spending all their time dealing with administrative burdens, grant applications, terribly anxious about whether they have chosen the right career.

This sends a very bad signal, and the fact that we've embedded research in the university setting means that. That eager young freshman see the pain of their, of their mentors and are dissuaded from the idea that, that this is, is a, a, a good path in life. The second issue I'd like to raise has to do with this idea of tapping some industrial sources of, of money. I think it's a great idea but I would urge. That we remember that not all states have Googles in them, and we are concerned as a national effort, and being sure that science is made available to the bulk of the populous, not just be confined to California and the east coast.

The third point, What was the third, let me just, one, one comment about something that Tej brought up, and that's the question of small verse large science. One of the things that I have found gratifying at the NCI, is the way in which scientists who pride themselves on their individuality were able to come together in a major effort that we have developed called the Cancer Genome Atlas. Hundreds of scientists working together to do things that are, that are novel and provide discoveries that are then acted on by smaller laboratories and in that effort. Which people remain enthusiastic about several years into the, into the project.

It's important that we learn how to evaluate contributions to science in a way that's not solely dependent on being a member of, of an authorship team of, that's 300 in, in length. And instead give people find new ways to evaluate. Fourth point that I [ INAUDIBLE ] was forgetting is has to do with this really terrific idea of trying to. Guar -, guarantee or, or increase the, the contributions that philanthropic agencies make to, to science. Very important. I used to run Memorial Sloan and Kettering, which benefited tremendously. But all of us who run, or have run research institutions in universities know that many donors don't like to pay indirect costs.

And it is important to remember that universities can only be bastions of great science. If their research infrastructure is adequately supported, and there's gotta be a way to do that in the planning that I, that I very strongly endorse as a way to try to get out of the morass that we're in at the moment. Harold, just following on your point about domestic talent, we not only have to improve the, in our ability to attract. Domestic talent. But, we're also losing a lot of highly trained people from the profession. So, a very good example of this is comes from several recent studies. 41 % of all the PhDs in sciences and engineering, including social sciences.

Or women PhD's. In fact, that's a segment that has increased significantly over the last decade, but only 26 % of the PhD level workforce in the country, represents women PhD's. So there is a lot of reasons for this, and one of the reasons, based on a number of studies including from Berkeley Law School. Was the fact that we don't do enough to support them with career responsibilities and family responsibilities, and Europe does a very good job in several countries, and this is an area where I think significant attention is needed. NIH, NSF and NASA last year started jointly started an effort called the Career Life Balance Initiative.

Tried to address that particular issue. And we have, we still have a very long way to go in that. The second point I wanna make, related to Demographic shifts and domestic talent is that last year for the first time in the history of the United States, we had more children born who were not members of what we would call majority today. So 18 years from now, when they enter college and universities. They will represent the biggest core heart of students entering universities, and they are severely under represented in our population, in our academic population right now. And this is a lingering issue, and this is something that, where significant effort is needed.

Lot of investments are being made. The federal government collectively spends 3. 3 billion dollars a year. In targeted stem program activities alone, across fourteen federal agencies. And yet, this problem continues to exist. And this is an area where significant attention is going to be needed. So, on those topics, if if our panel members have any suggestions. So I think, Eric, obviously everyone is going to agree again. I'll once more use California as an example, where we do not have a majority population. And in fact now at Berkeley in our undergraduate body, Caucasians constitute 32 % of our undergraduate body.

Caucasian males constitute 14 %, so we're an, extreme minority actually, and if we don't figure out ways of accessing properly the majority population then. We're going to be wasting tremendous amounts of talent on, on the, especially on the gender issue, we've worked very hard on that at Berkeley and successfully I believe. Too many women scientists broadly in academia but scientists in particular felt they had to make a choice between family and career. And it was either you have a family or you or, or you have a career. And so for example, women would, at the minimum, women faculty postponed having children till after they got tenure.

And it's especially in the life sciences where your first grant may come at age 42. Well, that's problem we've got to address too, separately. That's, that's, but it, but these are all connected actually, right? So, so we work very hard to introduce what we call, family friendly policies at Berkeley, too. To try to enhance the lives of all junior faculty, but especially women. And a quantitative measure of the, of the impact of family friendly policies is that, ten year ago, 26 % of our women faculty had children as junior faculty members. Now the number is 67 %. So it's transformational, so women faculty at Berkeley, because of our family friendly policies which is all kinds of support programs, now believe they can both have families and have careers.

And so, this is a really quite dramatic change, which came about because of very hard work by a large number of people. It's not surprising that the two of us talk about this because I have two daughters and he has four daughters. [ LAUGH ] So our future depends on this. I'm looking at the clock and I wanted to bring up not just problems but also. Some possible directions in which future solutions can be addressed and Bob brought up one issue of asking corporations like Apple or other corporations in California to contribute some fraction of their profit. There is also another effort that's currently underway just in the last couple of years.

This involves funding agencies from around the world to come together, in ways in which they had not come together before. To tap into and to take responsibility for a borderless knowledge enterprise. So let me be a little bit specific on this. They still have a long way to go, but the good news is at least there's an initial interest. The UK government last year, announced a policy for gold open access. Which means, from the time a scientific publication is released, funded by the UK government, basic science publication, it, it comes out in print. The UK government will pay for, free open access.

To anybody who wants to access it from anywhere in the world. This would cost the British tax payer 200 million pounds a year. And where was the money going to come from? The money was going to come from the funding agency, which means it's going to come from the pockets of the professors, who are receiving the money. There was an immediate backlash for this. So, if UK accounts for 7 % of scientific output in the world, why should the other 93 % get it for free, even though it's the right thing to do? And, it's the moral high ground to take. So, in light of that, we've been gathering heads of all the major funding agencies from around the world in a virtual entity called the Global Research Council.

And, it met at the National Science Foundation year and a half ago. And this year it met in Berlin. Next year they're gonna meet in Beijing. Each year they have a topic to address, to develop common principles that all the funding agencies around the world would, at least in principle, abide by. And, the next year's topic is how to pay for open access. To publications and eventually to data, how do we share this so that no one country, no one agency, takes the undue burden of having to pay for it. And remains to be seen how successful it will be, but it's, it's an area where it's gonna come through.

It's probably inappropriate to expect shared, complete shared cost coverage of those costs when you have many countries that have very small research budgets. And we're still talking about payment for open access that is a very small fraction of the total cost. Cost. Research is not useful if it's not disseminated. And I think the benefits are very great, even for those who have to, have to shoulder the, the major burden of the costs because it's not actually that great. And. Those costs are being shouldered now. The NIH was spending a tremendous amount of money and it probably still is, supporting libraries to buy.

Journals that are not all that valuable at outrageous subscription costs. And the open access business model actually is a cheaper model and one that seems to be implicit in the, the act of doing research. If you don't get the research findings out there, they're useless. absolutely. I think that's exactly why if. Five or ten countries take responsibility for it which, which they are already doing individually, but if they do in concert, that will solve the problem. Yeah I will say that this notion of having research funders around the world meet is very useful and I'm glad you brought this up because just two, three years ago, the head of Cancer Research UK, and I.

Developed a, an annual meeting for funders of cancer research around the world. And this allows us to get together to talk about cancer in poor countries, tobacco control, publication, dissemination, not just of research findings, but of, of standards of care because their, their standards of care are abysmal in certain parts of the world, in part, because of lack of information. This is a way to emphasize the importance of research for everyone in the world. Well, we have about a minute left and one of the topics that came up last night and this morning if trying to find viable economic models.

To survive in this rapidly changing whether it's economic models for universities, with respect to disruptive transformations in education. Or borderless knowledge enterprise for research. So, Robert, you wanna take a stab at, Ten seconds answer, yeah. Well I think it should be just to, kind of, tie some of the ingredients around, together, which is, our future. I think we just live in a tremendous time of opportunity of, mining talent, whether it's domestically, internationally there's, such terrific opportunities to, to reach out. So I think actually that should be kind of the core of any economic model from, from that point of view.

Great, we are right on time. I want to take this opportunity to thank our colleagues. And hopefully the, the questions are very difficult, the challenges are even more difficult, but hopefully some answers will emerge out of this. And we already saw a couple examples of even partial small answers that could potentially have a big impact, so thank you very much. [ SOUND ] [ MUSIC ]

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