Hi Wren,
This is a topic of daily for concern for me at work. You are right to be concerned. While it is great for universities and professors to get their fair share of the pie that comes from a new, patentable invention, you had better believe there are some serious unintended consequences rapidly developing.
To begin with - research funding is skewed toward research with more a obvious path to financial reward. But of course the most exciting discoveries and inventions don't always (or even usually) come out of those obvious pathways. Especially when researchers on the obvious pathways are rushing to get results so they can get patents so everybody can get some more pie. And this generally degrades passion and freedom to explore. Instead it turns universities into business endeavors cracking the whip over their most fruitful obvious pathways.
And - the best and brightest will channel into those obvious pathways. They'll either go there looking for pie themselves, or be shuttled there by people looking to get more pie when the best and the brightest get patents.
So the best and the brightest won't be as likely to follow that passion they always had for understanding the biochemistry of deep sea hydrothermal vents or the impact of radiation on hybrid tea roses or whatever wild and imaginative thing has sparked their beautiful minds. And the spark, ignited by passion and freedom to explore, are what drives the sideways discoveries that have elevated science and technology, I think.
I could go on and on. But suffice to say that the romantic notion of the solitary scientist working alone at night on an obscure project - and stumbling upon a brilliant new idea - is fading fast.
There will be precious little stumbling upon in our future, if things continue as they are. We'll get lots of improvements and refinements to existing stuff. But those sideways, serendipitous leaps are going to become scarce. But hey - there's always Kickstarter! Maybe innovation and invention will go there.
Just me on my soap box, but I do care about this a lot,
Sue
P.S.
I don't mean that the universities are doing this nefariously. In fact, they probably have to in order to survive the "race" as you so astutely put it.
