As a Ph.d. student who is working on NIH and NSF projects and funded by them - any real world applicable results is usually at the very end of many hours of research by hundreds of scientists and labs. If compared to a movie - applicable results are like when you see the logos of the movie studios at the very end of…

I work in research and rely heavily on NIH funding. To answer your question....is it free money? sort of. The findings of publicly funded research are available to all, and industry relies heavily on the findings of basic research being conducted by people like me at Universities. Private companies make a lot of money…