Large-scale military funding induces culture clash
Abstract Mission-oriented research shifts the assessment of research products and potential from scientists to external factors. This is the point of mission funding, but it introduces what the author calls ‘epistemic drift’, which is part of a more general clash between different value systems and cultures. The culture clash between the military and industry has led to a shift in debate from spin-off to dual-use technologies. Similar conflicts and tensions are introduced into the university research system by large-scale mission funding such as that of SDI, and it is imperative that universities establish a strong civilian base for fundamental research funding instead of lobbying for military support.
Spin-Off and the Strategic Defense Initiative: Promises, Premises, and Problems
as defense problems should be primarily judged on political, military and strategic grounds. The following article analyzes the factors that determine the extent to which military R&D might create civilian benefits. The determinant can be categorized in technological ones on the one hand and economic, organizational, political ones on the other hand. Both are to some degree interrelated. The technological category regards mainly two facets: the convergence or divergence of military and civilian technology, and the specifics of the military R&D process and technology. The economic, organizational, and political categories comprise above all two aspects: the circumstances under which military programs might substitute civilian industrial policy with the Department of Defense as the main coordinator for economic planning; secrecy for national reasons as a main barrier for spin-off. This paper focusses on the technological factors and on the secrecy issue. 1
Analysis: The Agenda 2007 Proposals: Evolution or Revolution?
On 10 February 2004 the Commission published its proposal for the financial perspective 2007-2013. A week later it adopted the third report on economic and social cohesion. These two documents form the basis of the so-called ‘Agenda 2007 reforms’. They will be the greatest challenge for the enlarged EU after the intergovernmental conference, since they will determine the financial basis for EU policy-making until the middle of the next decade. The Agenda 2007 proposals certainly hint at courageous reforms, because they place a previously unheard-of emphasis on performance and quality. Under the proposals, structural operations should generate value for money, and the funds should focus on projects which generate added value at a European level. Overall the Commission’s proposals point in the right direction, because they balance, on the one hand, solidarity for the new Member States and weak regions in the old Member States with, on the other hand, investments in future tasks. Moreover, they constitute a paradigm shift. For the first time, the Common Agricultural Policy will not be the dominant expenditure category. Now it is up to the Member States to examine the proposals politically and find a compromise between sometimes very divergent interests. It is to be hoped that, during the debate over expenditure limits and division of funds, national interests do not outweigh European interests.