From curiosity to prosperity: sharing the gains of science

从好奇到繁荣:分享科学的成果

LSE: Public lectures and events

2026-04-20

1 小时 45 分钟
PDF

单集简介 ...

Why should governments back “Big Science” when discoveries are uncertain and the benefits may seem distant from taxpayers’ daily lives? In this public lecture, France A Córdova—astrophysicist and former Director of the US National Science Foundation, NASA Chief Scientist, and President of the Science Philanthropy Alliance—explores how curiosity-driven research and the large infrastructures that enable it deliver value well beyond the lab.
更多

单集文稿 ...

  • Welcome to the LSE events podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

  • Get ready to hear from some of the most influential international figures in the social sciences.

  • Good evening everyone, my name is Larry Kramer.

  • For those who do n't know me, I'm the President and Vice Chancellor here at LSE and it 's my great pleasure to welcome you

  • all to this very special event hosted by LSE's Department of Geography and Environment.

  • So we 've all seen, I think, over the last couple of weeks,

  • these extraordinary images coming back from the moon and Earth, of the moon and Earth, sent by Artemis II.

  • And, you know, looking at them, they remind us of the power of science to really inspire.

  • They're amazing.

  • They never sort of lose that sense of what science can do in terms of expanding the frontier of what 's technically possible

  • and giving the public a vivid sense of our collective ambition of what we can accomplish.

  • They also remind us that achievements of that kind are seldom, if ever, the work of one nation alone.

  • Like CERN, we 'll hear from a bit about later,

  • Artemis rested on cooperation across borders, across institutions, and across scientific communities.

  • Now, and despite remarkable achievements like that and countless others that we 've seen in recent years,

  • we 're living through a period of unprecedented pressure on public science,

  • or at least the kind of pressure that we have n't really seen since the early 20th century.

  • Now, some of that pressure is economic.

  • Concerns about the cost of living, about inflation, about taxation, dominate political attention,

  • and squeeze the fiscal budgets of anything that 's deemed less essential,