
The economical crisis is affecting everything. We are all familiar with "budget cuts", "restrinctions", "debt", "risk premium",... In most high income countries the new
mantra are "make things profitable", "tax-payers money should be used only to support areas with added value", "let´s avoid unnecessary things", ... Not surprisingly this politicians view is also affecting science. Five to seven years ago many grant funding agencies, including the European Comission, started to deem basic science as a low priority area. Instead, major funding efforts are increasingly been devoted to those projects/areas showing great promises of transfer the knowledge to the market in a short time. In many places, at least in my own country Spain,
basic science is mostly considered a waste of money. Now in every project you write you really need to make a clear business case of the importance of your research, and expected results, for health, society, market,...In the context of biomedical research, my own area of research, projects should be truly oriented to impact significantly the National Health System (NHS).
Is it really true that we, basic scientists, are wasting tax-payers money? Is there not anymore space in our society for curiosity driven research funded by the goverments?