The Economics of Big Science: Essays by Leading Scientists and Policymakers

Introduction
 Hans Peter Beck and Panagiotis Charitos
 The present volume collects the proceedings of the workshop “The Economics of
 Science” that was held in June 2019 in Brussels in the framework of the Future
 Circular Collider (FCC) Week with the support of the H2020 EuroCirCol and
 EASITrain projects and the Belgium Charter of the LSE Alumni Association. The
 goal of the meeting was threefold: First to explore the role of public investments in
 research infrastructures and Big Science projects for economic development, review
 ways to access their financial impact beyond their core scientific mission and thirdly
 create a forum for exchanging best practices that can maximize the impact of such
 projects. The collected essays focus on Big Science Organizations that participated
 in the workshop while we should clarify to readers that by “Science” we mainly refer
 to curiosity-driven research. However, we hope that some of the ideas and tools
 discussed by the participants of the workshop can find applications in many ways.
 The economic and social benefits of Research & Innovation don’t happen by
 magic; they often have to start with curiosity-driven research, not directed to
 applications but to explore the nature of our universe and our place in it. What is
 much less well known is the wider impact this has on technology and our daily lives;
 fundamental, exploratory science that poses high-risks but also delivers surprising
 results in tackling some of the most pressing societal problems and unlocking new
 markets potential. A mere 150 years ago the candle was the main source of artificial
 light. By now, lighting has been developed to a very sophisticated degree. In Oren
 Harari’s famous quote: “The electric light did not come from the continuous
 improvement of candles”. No amount of research on the candle would have given

 us the electric light bulb which was only made possible through basic science that
 unveiled the nature of electricity and gave birth to numerous applications. Another
 example is the phonograph that Edison invented in 1877 based on making bumps in
 a metal surface and turning them into sound by running a mechanical “finger” along
 them. Despite years of improvements in the material, development of better bearing
 and support structures, the real revolution in our listening experience came with the
 development of MP3 technology. It took a courageous step followed by a long
 development process to store sound in a digital format thus revolutionizing the
 quality and volume of sound we can store today. In conclusion, only focusing on
 small step improvements that seemingly will lead to the next iteration ready to
 market, big opportunities will be missed that for short or long will turn out
 detrimental in any business model, if not in parallel basic and fundamental
 research are maintained at a healthy level and opportunities that open up from
 it are embarked on.
 The unprecedented pace of scientific discoveries during the 18th and 19th century
 that also led to the Industrial Revolution went hand in hand with the development of
 economics as a separate discipline; developing its own tools and methodology and
 advancing taking into account the progress of other fields from psychology and
 sociology to mathematics and computing. However it is our belief that today the
 pendulum is swinging back and this has been one of the motivations for preparing
 this volume. The contributions in this publication demonstrate, economists and
 scientists are coming closer together to realise the strong links between basic
 research and its societal impact. Today, research facilities, academic institutes,
 private industry and funding agencies embrace increased multi- and transdisciplinary
 research to tackle the world’s most challenging problems.
 A half-century ago, Gordon Moore wrote a paper in which he projected that
 progress in the density and speed of silicon chips would increase exponentially. In
 his paper, Moore envisioned how this would enable technologies ranging from the
 personal computer, to the smartphone, to the self-driving car. His prediction became
 known as Moore’s Law, and it has held remarkably true for 50 years. At the
 celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of his seminal paper back in 2015, Moore
 talked about the impact of his insight on modern technology and the crucial role of
 basic scientific research for realizing it. In his own words: “That’s really where these
 ideas get started. They take a long time to germinate, but eventually they lead to
 some marvelous advances. Certainly, our whole industry came out of some of the
 early understanding of the quantum mechanics of some of the materials. I look at
 what’s happening in the biological area, which is the result of looking more detailed
 at the way life works, looking at the structure of the genes and one thing and another.

The Economics of Big Science: Essays by Leading Scientists and Policymakers