Corruption Allegations Rock Australia's CSIRO 112
An anonymous reader writes "Australia's premiere government research organization, the CSIRO, has been rocked by allegations of corruption including: dishonesty with 60 top-class scientists bullied or fired, fraud against drug giant Novartis, and illegally using intellectual property, faking documents and unreliable testimony to judicial officers. CSIRO boss Megan Clark has refused to discipline the staff responsible and the federal police don't want to get involved. Victims are unimpressed and former CSIRO scientists are calling for an inquiry."
It looks bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Researchers feel ''sliced and diced'' and ''disempowered'', the reviews say, by the need to adhere to what paying customers want.
So it seems that CSIRO got a new director, and, not having enough funds, this new guy started operating the research group like a business, focusing on outside revenue from other companies. Of course, this made it hard to do science, especially since the director wasn't a particularly good director. The scientists almost are turned in to sales people. So it seems kind of bad.
It's a matter of 'not enough money' then 'getting money from the wrong sources' causing motivations to go bad.
Re:Patent troll (Score:1, Insightful)
If you're calling CSIRO a patent troll, I think you need to have a closer look. As a govt research body, the money they actually make from patents goes into MORE research (unlike actual patent trolls).