In the last decade or so industry has greatly reduced the amount of basic research it is doing. The demise of Bell Laboratories as it once was is an example. In my view, it is even more important now that universities play an important role in basic research. Michigan State's nuclear physics program, for instance, is second only to MIT in the country. Over a generation, it will certainly produce very important results for humankind.
Research is the natural inclination of many of our faculty.
But, of course, this strength sometimes means that many faculty aren't likely to work on what can be marketed a few years out. Nevertheless, we probably can continue to do basic research and still do more work on technology that can be commercialized. The distinction between basic and applied seems to be blurring somewhat. More research is what is called strategically directed research. In other words, the work is both fundamental as well as problem specific.