Outsiders are not welcome, either as applicants or judges. One would need to be blind to the value of the funding processes that have made the patronage of American life sciences so brilliantly productive, to be unconcerned that this heralded exemplar of a new way of doing business may be exactly that, and that the new way could seriously undermine the old. It is important to say clearly that there is nothing of bad faith or nefarious dealings in this agreement. There is nothing illegal, immoral or unethical in that. This is outdated.
Research has to be useful, even if many years down the line, to be worthwhile.
It is none of those. If that is what, in the end, we want, then so be it. But it is surely mistaken to accept the notion that once we have identified a set of complementary needs and taken some care to assure that a contract is carefully drafted, we have thereby dealt with all of the important issues. The University of California has been scrupulous in its concerns for the issues that lie within the four corners of its agreement. But it has not shown comparable concern, at least publicly, about the direction in which its good fortune takes important issues of research policy, and the effect that this example may have on others.