The last few weeks have seen the emergence of two very interesting memes about science, both of which have the potential to radically re-shape higher education.

The first is from Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist famed for having invested early in Facebook. Yes, he often comes off as a self-promoting jerk, but a recent speech he made on the subject of the slowdown in the development of technology (and the associated National Review article) is very much worth reading. Riffing off Tyler Cowen’s recent e-book The Great Stagnation, Thiel argues that innovation is stalling, and that technology investments are no longer resulting in improvements in living standards. It’s more of a narrative argument than an empirical one, but it’s thought-provoking nonetheless.

The other big new meme comes from the Special Report in this week’s issue of the Economist. In it, Martin Giles makes the argument that technology is increasingly being driven not by research trickling down from universities and government laboratories but rather from individual firms working in consumer technology.

Ever since Vannevar Bush wrote Science: the Endless Frontier right after World War II, the idea that government investment in inquiry-driven, university-hosted science would drive the scientific progress that would ensure permanent economic prosperity has been the bedrock of higher education funding policy in America (and later, much of the OECD as well, including Canada). Thiel’s and Giles’s arguments both challenge this idea. Basically, they both posit that science à la Bush isn’t working – that development is no longer reliant on research (Giles) and that development isn’t delivering much anyway (Thiel).

If either of them are right – and it’s not a settled issue, obviously – some very profound questions arise. Most notably: why fund university research, or at least, why fund it to the degree and in the manner we presently do? It’s a question more and more people in Ottawa are asking anyway, given the relatively meager commercialization outputs of over a decade of unprecedented S & T spending through programs like the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

Coincidentally, the Expert Panel reviewing federal R&D spending is expected to report next Monday. I hear that all has not been smooth among the panelists and that they may not be presenting a unanimous report.

Looks like science policy in Canada is about to get a whole lot more interesting.