Tax revenue accruing from the commercialization of research findings as an indicator for economic benefits of government financed research

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In this article, we propose the use of tax payments accruing from the commercialization of research findings as a measure of research benefits complementing the existing range of evaluation tools. We place this novel approach to assess the economic returns to publicly funded research in the context of previous studies and highlight its advantages. The application of our method over a long period is demonstrated with the example of saccharin, which was discovered in the context of a curiosity-driven fundamental research project. In our study, we focused on Monsanto's commercial saccharin production finding notable returns.