[scientizscht (OP)]

Can't seem to find any in the UK or elsewhere.

[alancalverd]

That's because Lord Rayleigh explained why the sky is blue in 1871. No further research is necessary.

[Colin2B]

That's because Lord Rayleigh explained why the sky is blue in 1871. No further research is necessary.

What! No support either??
So what keeps the sky up?

[alancalverd]

Both Lord Rayleigh and the sky had independent means of support. Much better than a limited government grant. His farms and dairy company are still trading, and the sky is still there.

[Colin2B]

.........and the sky is still there.

We have a lot to thank Lord Rayleigh for 

[scientizscht (OP)]

Nice banter, any serious reply?

[Bored chemist]

Nice banter, any serious reply?

At least a part of the research done in universities is  blue sky.

[scientizscht (OP)]

Nice banter, any serious reply?

At least a part of the research done in universities is  blue sky.

Definitely not the externally funded as it requires lots of pilot data.

[Ophiolite]

Nice banter, any serious reply?

At least a part of the research done in universities is  blue sky.

Definitely not the externally funded as it requires lots of pilot data.

The semantic content of that sentence appears close to zero. Would you like to rephrase it?

[evan_au]

Is there any grant or support for blue sky research?

Yes. But it's not usually called that.

It might be called a "Request for proposals" or "UK funding for fusion research" or "BREXIT negotiations"

[scientizscht (OP)]

Nice banter, any serious reply?

At least a part of the research done in universities is  blue sky.

Definitely not the externally funded as it requires lots of pilot data.

The semantic content of that sentence appears close to zero. Would you like to rephrase it?

University research is either funded from the university itself or from external funds.
In the latter, the funding organisations require lots of pilot data. So it is almost impossible to receive such funding for blue sky research.
Blue sky research is very novel with limited supporting evidence.

[Bored chemist]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47524760
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47568893
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47573933
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-47518544/galleonosaurus-dorisae-new-dinosaur-discovered-in-australia

[alancalverd]

The whole point of research is to
add a hint of academic respectability to a vocational qualification
give third-rate lecturers something harmless to supervise
improve a product
test a plausible hypothesis

If either of the last two could lead to a patent, industry will fund it. Otherwise you need to con the taxpayer or a charity into giving you money, and universities are very good at that.
 

[scientizscht (OP)]

The whole point of research is to
add a hint of academic respectability to a vocational qualification
give third-rate lecturers something harmless to supervise
improve a product
test a plausible hypothesis

If either of the last two could lead to a patent, industry will fund it. Otherwise you need to con the taxpayer or a charity into giving you money, and universities are very good at that.

Lol well said, so 2/4 of research is for professional development of useless lecturers and stuckup phd wannabes, brilliant!

I can't believe the amount spent on ridiculous things given their extreme reluctance to fund very novel projects.

Look at these:
https://www.traumamic.nihr.ac.uk/case-studies/case-study-3/

They overengineered a piss pot and sell it as a medtech miracle.

And this company has offices in Bloomsbury as if it is a multibillion hedge fund or private equity firm or even a company developing cancer drugs. You just can't stop getting amazed.

Or look at this prestigious Imperial technology:
https://www.imperialinnovations.co.uk/industry/available-technologies/

The first one means it's their most important? I dread to imagine.

They developed a diet app for fatty liver. I cannot imagine more wasteful way to spend resources.

There are almost a billion diet/health/blah apps and I am pretty sure not even 0.0001% of patients have installed them and even lower percentage uses them frequently and even even lower percentage has actually benefited from them and even in this case, the benefit must be 0.00001% compared to other apps or not using any apps and just following a diet.

And the same kind of people will tell you, oh your project is too advanced, we cannot spend money to fund it.

[scientizscht (OP)]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47524760
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47568893
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47573933
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-47518544/galleonosaurus-dorisae-new-dinosaur-discovered-in-australia

Great laugh, I loved the pi work the most.

[evan_au]

Emma Haruka Iwao smashes pi world record with Google help...31 trillion digits

To some extent, that is just organising a cloud computer big enough to do the computation, with known algorithms. That is an Engineering and Funding problem.

Blue sky research would be to prove that pi is a "normal" number, where every possible string of digits is equally likely to appear. This is an unsolved problem in mathematics.

In fact, you could say that any form of pure mathematics is blue sky, since it rarely has a practical application in sight at the time the research is being done.