What are universities for? (From Geoffrey Boulton Vice-Principal of the University of Edinburgh)

http://blogs.uct.ac.za/blog/transplant-ed/2009/04/02/what-are-universities-for-from-geoffrey-boulton-vice-principal-of-the-university-of-edinburgh

"...Thirty years ago, scientists who studied climate change, and I am one of them, tended to have long hair and very colourful socks. We were regarded as harmless but irrelevant. But the serendipitous investment in their work revealed processes that we now recognise as threatening the future of human society, and the successors to those scientists are playing a crucial role in assessing how we need to adapt..."