From Curiosity to Prosperity: Sharing the Gains of Science | LSE Event

Why It Matters

Without renewed investment and collaborative frameworks, the pipeline of transformative technologies and the talent that fuels them will erode, jeopardizing future economic growth and societal resilience.

Key Takeaways

• Public funding for curiosity‑driven research faces unprecedented economic and political pressure.
• Big‑science breakthroughs (mRNA vaccines, GPS, LIGO) stem from long‑term basic research.
• International collaboration remains essential as nationalism threatens open scientific cooperation.
• Inspiration and talent pipelines are undervalued public benefits of large‑scale science.
• Philanthropic networks are emerging to offset declining federal support for fundamental research.

Summary

The London School of Economics hosted a high‑profile panel on the economics of "big science," featuring former NSF director France Cordova, CERN’s Mark Thompson, and EU innovation chief Maria Christina Russo. Cordova framed the discussion around the growing fiscal squeeze on curiosity‑driven research, noting that inflation, cost‑of‑living concerns, and a post‑truth backlash are crowding out long‑term scientific investment. She highlighted historic breakthroughs—mRNA vaccines, MRI, semiconductors, GPS, and LIGO—that originated from basic research decades before commercial payoff. While these achievements generated massive societal benefits, their development required billions of dollars and multinational cooperation, underscoring the fragile balance between scientific ambition and political budgeting. Cordova emphasized two often‑overlooked returns: public inspiration and a pipeline of future talent. She recounted how the IceCube neutrino detector, CERN’s Higgs discovery, and the Kepler exoplanet mission captured global imagination, driving students toward STEM careers. The panel also noted the rise of the Science Philanthropy Alliance, a coalition of private funders stepping in as federal support wanes. The conversation concluded that sustaining big‑science enterprises demands coordinated policy, renewed public advocacy, and diversified financing—including philanthropy and international partnerships—to preserve the long‑term economic and cultural dividends of curiosity‑driven discovery.

Original Description

Why should governments back “Big Science” when discoveries are uncertain and the benefits may seem distant from taxpayers’ daily lives? In this public lecture, France A Córdova—astrophysicist and former Director of the US National Science Foundation, NASA Chief Scientist, and President of the Science Philanthropy Alliance—explores how curiosity-driven research and the large infrastructures that enable it deliver value well beyond the lab.

Speaker:

Dr France Anne Córdova

Discussants:

Riccardo Crescenzi

Maria Cristina Russo

Professor Mark Thomson

Chair:

Professor Larry Kramer

Full details: https://www.lse.ac.uk/events/gains-of-science

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