CEOs of 15 top US technology companies -- IBM, Dupont, GE, etc. -- have urged Congress to support university research. [Robert L. Park, WHAT'S NEW, 3/31/95.] (CEOs may have more clout than university presidents with the new Congress. But note what's happening: corporate America doesn't want to support research labs, so it's asking for government-funded basic and graduate-level research. Where are those graduate students going to work when they complete their doctorates? University departments are saturated with faculty and postdocs, except for normal attrition. Ditto for industry labs, except for new product development or during booming economic periods. And for the new products, Industry will just hand your thesis to in-house engineering teams. University research may be more efficient than [competitive, overlapping, trade-secret] industry labs -- meaning that fewer scientists are employed -- but the research is also slow, unfocused, and in the public domain. Where does that leave national competitiveness? And without competitive advantage through research, who will fund research? Do scientists really want to be Industry's bastard children, raised in academic workhouses on the public dole? Or do scientists want the responsibilities and rewards of shared corporate leadership?)

If cheap-but-professional research is your need, consider hiring Russian programmers and scientists. St. Petersburg University has a high concentration of mathematicians and other intellectuals, and they are now connected by email. Have full PhDs develop or test your code for Windows, OLE2, C, C++, MFC, OWL, TAsm, DBase, Paradox, Access, etc. Contact Igor V. Melichev . [misc.jobs.misc, 12/30/94.] (Unfortunately, they have no openings for US or European graduates -- but they might off-load some of your dissertation work.)