Funding for research

So, the speculation is that the UK government will now only fund academic research that has demonstrable ecomonic benefit. The UK government is to stop funding "pointless" university research, forcing academics to prove that their academic inquiry has some relevance to the real world. This fills me with dread for where does this leave nurisng research? The kind of research carried out by most nursing departments shows, at best, some small clinical benefit to patients but since when have sucessive UK governments ever seen this a a prime motivating force for the funding of research? How is making some one feel more comfortable econimically viable?

In the last Research Assesment Exercise in the UK, nursing did quite well, nurse academics felt optimisitic and hopeful about the future of research in the UK  - and now this! No more researching for the pure fun of finding something out, no more investagtions focussing upon rare or unusal clincial situations or conditions - no , not ecomincaly viable my friends. As David Mitchell pointed out far more wittily than I could, presumably because he is not so choked with rage as me, so many useful things have been discovered just by someone messing about with an idea - not just amazing things like peanut butter and banana sandwiches and those gel things you put in your high heels to make them more comfortable but some quite useful stuff like Scotchguard, Pencillin and Viagra. So, it seems that just when nursing research finally got invited to the academic party all that was left for it to do was the washing up.