Sir

I still do not understand why the funding deal between the Swiss firm Syngenta and Berkeley's department of plant and microbial biology was considered “a mistake”, as the Busch report claims (Nature 430, 598; 200410.1038/430598b).

Let's look at the balance sheet. On the up side, Berkeley got $25 million, which funded 26 researchers. These researchers made 12 patentable discoveries with Syngenta funding, and the company is pursuing six of these. Moreover, there was no harm to the quality or freedom of academic research. On the down side, an individual faculty member may or may not have had problems separating his personal interest from his duties on a tenure committee, and the Berkeley researchers were not especially productive with the Syngenta funding.

Where is the mistake here? It looks to me as if Berkeley got a pretty good deal, and the negatives seem to be the responsibility of individuals in the Berkeley community.

Is there more to the story? Does the report show that Syngenta's funding somehow caused the disappointing productivity of the research?

Judging from what I have read, it seems that the deal was a “mistake” only because the critics have decided that all such deals must be mistakes.