Todd Young Quotes

The role of the federal government is to make sure enough research dollars flow into … universities to help create the ideas that 10 or 15 years from today will be exciting products.

I do think actually in this case the government does get credit for funding some of the basic research.

Congress commissioned the first telegraph line, the railroads, the Internet. The role of the government in developing new technology is often misunderstood.

Not all research is going to be turned into some new innovation, but there are some things that can be and that haven't been, and I think the federal government has a proper role to play in doing that.

Fundamental science that may not achieve results must be supported at the state level.

Finally, assuming that many of those are fulfilled, which won't be easy in tight budget times, we're taking the supply side at the basic research level, because that's where government is absolutely fundamental.

How much further beyond basic research the role of the government should be, you could have a really good debate about it. Almost nobody would say it's zero. But that's where at least we need the private sector to play a big role.

The work I was involved in had no obvious therapeutic benefit. It was purely of scientific interest. I hope the country will continue to support basic research even though it may have no obvious practical value.

Literally from the moment I came in the door of MIT, it was very clear that a highly productive 40-year partnership between U.S. research universities and the federal government was badly eroding.

Personally, I attach great importance to research in fundamental sciences because I believe that no applied or developmental research can do without basic research as the wellspring and driving force. But, in this world of ours, often because of material gains and immediate interests, it is easy to neglect basic research. This should be avoided.

Many people think that the U.S. is ahead in the frontier technology sectors as a result of private sector entrepreneurship. It's not. The U.S. federal government created all these sectors.

Government isn't that good at rapid advancement of technology. It tends to be better at funding basic research. To have things take off, you've got to have commercial companies do it.

Students and postdoctoral fellows largely depend on the support of the public sector to finance the training and research that will make them world-renowned scientists.

The federal contribution to our state for education has gone from 3.9 percent to 4.4 percent. The federal government may be a contributor but this is hardly a partnership.

If you sense a deep human need, then you go back to all the basic science. If there is some missing, then you try to do more basic science and applied science until you get it.

A lot of the basic research that helped us figure out fracking came from the federal government.

America may say that it values science, but it sure as hell doesn't want to pay for it.

Theoretical physics hardly requires any research funding, so I never felt the need. The overall government and institutional support has been good enough for my work.

We must give scientists the opportunity through funding and time to pursue curiosity-based, long-term, basic-science research.

Scientists have argued that research is good for health, wealth, and society, and the government has trusted them on that.

We need to show why the government should be funding science and how that funding delivers.

Just as our roads and bridges are overdue for investment, so is the infrastructure for scientific research; that is, the body of scientific thought and the tools for searching through it.

Societies will, of course, wish to exercise prudence in deciding which technologies that is, which applications of science are to be pursued and which not. But without funding basic research, without supporting the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake, our options become dangerously limited.

Government support is not only investing in upstream areas like basic research, but also in downstream areas like applied research and early-stage financing for the companies themselves. This means there are great risks.

Government investment unlocks a huge amount of private sector activity, but the basic research that we put into IT work that led to the Internet and lots of great companies and jobs, the basic work we put into the health care sector, where it's over $30 billion a year in R&D that led the biotech and pharma jobs. And it creates jobs and it creates new technologies that will be productized. But the government has to prime the pump here. The basic ideas, as in those other industries, start with government investment.