Very well put. Take AI as an example - foundational research in deep learning and reinforcement learning was first done in academia. Everyone knows the story of how long neural networks languished in the shadows, before its time. Even commercial research labs only really took note after the potential of these methods was discovered.
Government funding is a good thing, but it’d be even better would be if we could harness the free market. One solution could be to equip research institutions with the means to capture value from IP that follows on from basic research.
I was thinking in a similar direction. What about an adaptive patent law? Where the duration of the protection in a particular area of interest can be set by e.g. a committee (with a strict ruleset and a big time constant of course). So when there is not much progress in a certain area (e.g. cancer or nuclear fusion) the patent protection is increased to incentivise investments.
A problem with this approach are obviously the unknown unknowns, which might prevent this system from incentivising inventions like the transistor. So this approach can probably only help with problem driven areas and not in cases where the tech innovation gives rise to new problems/solutions
Government funding is a good thing, but it’d be even better would be if we could harness the free market. One solution could be to equip research institutions with the means to capture value from IP that follows on from basic research.