While "cannot" might be a little strong, it can be true, depend on the field and company of course.
I used to work at a large company that in the past performed a large amount of fundamental research into physics, since it affected their products. I took a tour of the labs recently and they are a shadow of their former selves. It was depressing.
I think reduction in private sector STEM comes from several sources. One is the private sector not willing to take the risk of something not working, no long-term thinking, etc.
Another might be the relative difficulty in measuring the impact of your R&D department. In an era where every cost has to be justified and everything has to be measured by some metric, R&D begins to look like an expense rather than a profit generator, at least in the short-medium term.
I used to work at a large company that in the past performed a large amount of fundamental research into physics, since it affected their products. I took a tour of the labs recently and they are a shadow of their former selves. It was depressing.
I think reduction in private sector STEM comes from several sources. One is the private sector not willing to take the risk of something not working, no long-term thinking, etc.
Another might be the relative difficulty in measuring the impact of your R&D department. In an era where every cost has to be justified and everything has to be measured by some metric, R&D begins to look like an expense rather than a profit generator, at least in the short-medium term.