Research is approached in academia and industry through the funding that they are given. The difference is that academia is funded through grants and publications. You cannot miss a deadline for an abstract or proposal for a grant otherwise you will not get the funding to do the research that you’re interested in doing. There are so many people out there that would want to do research through grants and publications because there is so much flexibility in time to finish these papers once the grants are given. However, funding for industry comes from management and the hire ups like marketing. They only budget a certain amount from the company to do research. The marketing team, the managers, and other departments that are depending on your research will always be asking for your results. There is less flexibility in this area of research. There is definitely more pressure in finishing these deadlines during the research compared to academia.

Besides funding, another approach for research in academia and industry is the reason behind why in each area. For academia, many people do it for the passion of research and taking the time to work on their research. This type of research can take multiple years to be readily available for others to use. For industry, many people go this route because of their passion for what the company stands for. Many companies have different causes that they want to be the cure for and help those in need such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, etc. These companies will talk about the causes they want to help with which will give people who want to help in those areas, want to be a part of that company and do research with them. Industry also contributes to society a lot quicker than academia. The medical devices made in companies are more readily available to people in a shorter time span.

Out of these approaches, I find that the reasoning behind why they do the research is more appealing to me. I prefer working in an industry that has a cause and can make their products more readily available to people in a shorter time span. I want to be able to help people more now, than have to wait for many years to have the research and product available to people which is what occurs in academia.