Science: Corporate, university and public sector
Hal Brown

7/24/99 This is the weekend of the big IFT meeting in Chicago. Looking over the huge and diverse workshop schedule, one would be hard-pressed to find scientists employed by corporations sharing the results of their research.   Indeed, most of these individuals are forbidden to share proprietary information outside of their own labs. Proprietary, from what I gather, means all and any information from whether they drive a company car to the secret formula for Zippy Treats. While some states like California, have enacted legislation limiting these contractual "gag" clauses to periods of time after which scientists are free to publish   or share research elsewhere, others are bound virtually for life to the noncompetition rule.

I have known scientists in the university, public and corporate sectors. All are learned and all have made contributions in their fields. The only objective difference I can find is that those working for corporations make more money. Those bound by iron-clad noncompete agreements who want to go on to work in academic or public settings are forced to change the focus of their work.

Subjectively, I have found a degree of frustration among scientists working for corporations when they believe more in science than they do in profit. I have also heard tales of resentment from university and public sector scientists, not for the salary figures which are sometimes double what they can earn, but because the research they do is sometimes "adapted" and  palmed off by corporate scientists to their unknowing bosses as completely original.

I'm not sure if one can make generalizations as to why one scientist decides to work for a corporation and why another chooses a university or government agency.  Companies have their own internal cultures, and subcultures - I suspect there can be vast difference between subcultures within a company. Sometimes the researchers are housed in different buildings or different locations from the corporate folks. Universities are worlds apart from the "real world", sometimes in the case of rural ones, quite literally, located in another "world".  While university professors often gripe about college politics, they rarely have to put up with the true politics found in some government agencies. Witness the firing of Joyclyn Elders for some perfectly justified remarks about sexuality. But neither government or academic scientists have to deal with the predatory politics found in some companies.

This weekend corporate scientists and company "suits" are landing in Chicago to learn the latest in food and beverage science. They will leave the meeting with ideas worth hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of dollars. Their university and government cousins may pass by them as they walk through First Class to their Coach seats.