Astronomy is a Business

Comments

5 responses to “Astronomy is a Business”

1. 

   15 November 09

   Scot

   In re-reading this post, I just realized I didn’t say anything about ground-based optical facilities needing to compete with space missions, ground-based non-optical facilities, and even other science facilities like particle accelerators and the like. Any government or even private donor wishing to spend its money on basic research has to decide among this wealth of choices. It’s a good time for funders of research, but an increasingly competitive time for those looking for funding.
2. 

   16 November 09

   Chris O

   I’ve been enjoying your posts and the SPIE paper, but I think the “astronomy as business” model falls short of the mark. It seems to me, the better comparison is a charitable organization. In some respects, businesses have it easy–if they’re successful, they make profits and are self-enabled to “continue and grow with time”. But when a charity/observatory increases its output of good/science, all it has is a better case to take to those holding the purse strings.

   Even the “astronomy as charity” model has limitations. While I can envision it applying to organizations like NOAO and ESO, a facility like Gemini strikes me as being more like a non-profit orchestra that only plays free concerts in the park. If the orchestra/observatory is funded well, they can attract fantastic musicians/staff and play terrific music/do great science and serve enormous crowds/produce lots of citations, but they don’t directly benefit financially from being popular. If money is available, they can bring in exciting new instruments, but they can only perform as a single unit and only on a certain number of nights per year. That places a different kind of limitation on the ways in which they can “grow”. (If Gemini added another telescope, they’d have to rename the whole observatory, wouldn’t they?) 😉

   So as not to drone on too much, let me conclude with two questions. Has anyone responsible for funding astronomy (politicians, philanthropists, etc.) had even the slightest understanding of the “full picture” since the days of Percival Lowell? And doesn’t that mean that astronomy has long been in the position of having to persuade those who control its (financial) fate of what matters and why?
3. 

   17 November 09

   Scot

   Thanks for the comments, Chris.

   Your description of astronomy as a charity vs. a business is interesting. Indeed you are right, that success alone in an observatory’s output (ex. science) does not self-guarantee its ability to continue and expand. The point I wanted to make was that the funding agencies have so many options these days that they must perceive observatory X as offering more return than science project Y in order to fund it. That value could be in scientific output, technological development and transfer, funds returned for development projects, etc., but it is some bottom line value for unit of money invested that is of concern.

   To address your latter questions, I think you are right. The audience I was really aiming at was the observatory employee who works like the observatory has a right to exist and continue as some sort of elite academic, R&D endeavor. What matters to the people who give us money is what we can return to them compared to the competition. There are plenty of other options these days in which to invest your astronomy dollars if one facility is not returning enough value. We exist as long as we satisfy our funders. Maybe you’re right in that things haven’t really changed all that much, but I imagine the choices were a little slimmer back in the 60″, 100″, 200″ days, so less demand was placed on each new facility in terms of having to compete for its existence.

   s
4. 

   17 November 09

   Chris O

   I agree that observatories ought to be maximizing the utility of the money they receive, both for their own benefit and to ensure that continued investment is an attractive proposition for the funding agencies. Furthermore, I think your description of the competition between facilities is completely accurate. But I wonder if the charity analogy can be instructive in another way. There’s no easy metric that can accurately quantify the amount of good done by a charity–the value they provide has to be assessed more qualitatively. Astronomy has latched on to citation counts (or citations/$) with the same zeal as the business world looking at P/E ratios. But perhaps the charity model offers an alternative standard. It would likely take an effort amongst all of the natural science communities (not just astronomy), but eventually the funding agencies may be converted to adopting a broader view of what value a research facility provides. Could a more holistic view of an observatory’s “product” help to alleviate the Scientist Dilemma?
5. 

   18 November 09

   Scot

   Hi Chris,

   Indeed – the products of an observatory are far more numerous than papers or citations and recognizing this fact would help provide a broader context for viewing the resources an observatory uses. (Although it’s a bit more complicated than that. Most scientists wouldn’t argue about the value of scientific research by scientists at an observatory, for example, but when credit for that research doesn’t directly flow to the funders – especially in a multi-institution project – they become less willing to pay for it.) I also wonder if the distinction between a business and a charity is of much practical use. I don’t know, but I would imagine that the best charities are run like businesses – you still need to maximize your return per money invested in both cases; it’s just that what you define as your return may be different. I also have a little trouble still with the charity definition. Astronomical facilities can have tangible, monetary returns in addition to the less tangible “furthering human knowledge” return. Gemini, for example, returns monetary contracts for new instruments back to the partner countries- in essence using the money they provided the observatory to pay for jobs and technology development in their own country.

   I do like the charity model characteristic that even if you do have the best value return around, an astronomical facility still cannot guarantee its funding. But since you have to try, regardless, I’m not sure this control of fate is really a practical difference.

   The Scientist Dilemma simply arises from a hope that science and technical people can be employed for their science and technical skills, but in a job that may not allow them to develop them. The need is to fully recognize why these specialized skills are needed and how their development also continues to help the facility even if it doesn’t result in an immediate task getting done more efficiently. I imagine companies with significant R&D components have to make similar judgments as to how much to invest in R&D and how focused to require their researchers’ efforts to be.

   s