the Fraunhofer Society in Germany. For more fundamental research, there's also the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada as a successful model for fundamental research. In my view this trend to create such institutions, whether at universities or outside of them, will increase with time. In the UK, the science minister has indicated similar plans, but I don't see much having come out of this so far. Obviously, it won't be possible to offer any realistic solution to the problem in a blog post. But to me the present approaches to manage shrinking research budgets is inadequate. If we do less research we need to do it right. And using this crisis to think about our research infrastructure needn't be a bad thing. It should be seen as an opportunity to reform the academic research system in a more comprehensive and fundamental way than the academic community and the politicians normally dare to think about. 15 Comments on "Science in the age of austerity" Excellent thoughts, Joerg. And well put. I personally feel that the large research grants are a mistake in that they kill diversity of thought. In my postdoc, I was at a research group that would have benefited from such a policy. I don't know that I can say it would have been money well spent. I also worry that killing "redundancy" may have the same effects. In this respect I'd also worry about centers. I think that centers can be wonderful things. But, I also