National labs and other government research centers are a research alternative to universities

# National labs and other government research centers are a research alternative to universities Government researchers are still in the ‘academia’ game in that they want to publish papers and discover and invent cool shit. [[People and organizations are all playing some game that has different ways of gaining status and power]] Government researchers have both less freedom and more freedom than university researchers. If they can justify how their research is aligned with the higher-level missions of the organization, they don’t need to spend time writing grants or teaching like professors in universities. [[Professors do three or more jobs]]. The need to spend the majority of their time on organizationally aligned research means that they can’t do super crazy things. Additionally [[The people setting research priorities at AFRL are often not technical]], which is another constraint that may kill promising projects. Research at national labs is perceived by people in academia as being lower impact than at universities. [[University professorships are the highest status jobs in academia]]. The lower impact is because their research needs to align with the department they are part of. ([[Innovation orgs need to be aligned with their money factory]]. This creates a feedback loop where the really good researchers don’t work at government labs and the phenomenon of [[A players hire A players and B players hire C players]] happens. This whole story is so similar to [[§Corporate R+D Constraints]], I would go so far as to say that government labs are basically tax-payer funded Corporate R&D. [[Government research is corporate R&D for United States Inc]]. Questions about the orgs: * [[How are research agendas set at National Labs?]] * Are the people who work there technically government or university employees? * How is the money allocated * How does your career progress? ### Related * [[Federally funded research and development centers - FFRDC]] * [[Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research]] * [[Air Force Research Laboratory - AFRL]] * [[Naval Research Laboratory]] * [[Jeff Graham Conversation 4-17-2020]] [^1]:// According to [[Marissa Weichman]] :  [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/National_labs_and_other_government_research_centers_are_a_research_alternative_to_universities) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/National_labs_and_other_government_research_centers_are_a_research_alternative_to_universities)