Moonshot or moonshine? Attitudes are shifting to blue sky corporate science. In the US, business funded 28 per cent of basic research in 2017, double the share in 2006. In absolute terms, business spending on basic research tripled.
A quest for knowledge with no specific application jars with the fashion for business focus and discipline. Nylon inventor Du Pont was once so famous for pure research that its labs were nicknamed Purity Hall. When the chemical giant was targeted by activist investor Nelson Peltz in 2015, he argued there was nothing to show for billions of dollars of agricultural R&D spending.
Of course, big budgets do not guarantee results. As a share of GDP, South Korea is the world’s highest spender on R&D. Business pays for 56 per cent of basic research there. But performance may be held back by the cronyism of powerful and opaque conglomerates — or chaebol.