Around the globe, governments and institutions aspire to be world class. Governments understand the potential of research institutions to create knowledge networks and to attract inward investment from knowledge intensive industries, and consequentially their ambitions continue to grow. But how realistic are world class ambitions for most countries? What are the challenges and constraints they face? Who should pay for the significant cost of entry as well as the ongoing investment costs required to resource world class institutions?
Governments currently invest the most, with industry contributing only modestly for applied research, and it is unlikely that this balance will change. Because of the nature of funding, research is largely determined by national agencies and governed by national interests. But the purpose of research institutions is for public good, and these issues provide major barriers to global research networks operating to their full potential.
