jramphis Asks:
mindchemy Said:
Hmm. Fascinating question. My gut says that Puerto Ricans are career and income oriented…thus they complete their undergraduate degrees and immediately, or even before immediately, go off to print cash. Assume for a moment that awesome graduate research opportunities existed in Puerto Rico. Do you really think folks would forsake their Boeing and Raytheon offers? I don’t think so.
That’s the demand side…what about the supply? Up until recently the R&D enterprise was the UPR enterprise, and researchers there estimate their productivity is just 33% of what it would be elsewhere due to bureaucratic hassles. UPR also has a business model reliant on its constitutionally mandated 9% slice of the general fund, so it is generally too lazy to cultivate alumni networks, donors and high-impact research.
I don’t know specifically about R&D support services, but my estimate is that the graduate research enterprise in Puerto Rico is one order of magnitude off its natural size, pressured by the forces above. Thus, it should be a $1B per annum across all disciplines. That’d be my target.
