[alephnil]

Some funding happens through the university, but an increasingly large part of it is gathered through external grants, most often financed through the government. My understanding is that the author argue that when external grants make up most of the funding, universities are just overhead for the scientists. The scientists will still be funded by the government or other grant agencies, but not be employed by a university. In other words, a different way of organizing research.

I don't say I necessarily agree with that position. it would have large implications on how advanced degrees are given, which is part of why the government pay for research in addition to the science output. There for sure are other things that must be handled differently in society as well, but that's the argument as I understand it. To some extent government labs as well as private research organizations to some extent do research outside of universities already, but most science happens inside universities and is combined with education.

[DiogenesKynikos]

A university department is a research community, which is much more valuable than just some bureaucratic overhead.

A group of professors, postdocs and grad students regularly interacting with one another, attending talks by visiting researchers, going to journal club every week to discuss new papers, etc. will be much more intellectually productive, in general, than the same set of people dispersed and trying to work by themselves.

Of course, the university does also perform bureaucratic functions, like running payroll, making sure the grant money is used on what it's supposed to be used on, and very importantly, organizing classes for undergraduate and graduate students. However, the university is also an intellectual community.

[jleyank]

A whole lot of science goes on in Pharma and Biotech, but the paper doesn't appear until the project fails or, perhaps, after the patent is granted and things are "safe". And I'm sure some things are held as trade secrets. They were in computational modeling so I assume they're handled the same way in "real" chemistry.