A question of cash

Tim Birkhead writes that "academics, unlike people in other forms of employment, are not motivated primarily by money" ("If you don't like your job ... ", 22 May). He also says: "Research brings its own rewards - mainly the excitement of discovering something new but increasingly the excitement of knowing that they have put cash in the university's coffers and the payoff that may bring." Which does he mean?

David M. Thompson, Professor of modern Church history, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.