All of whom were staffed by people heavily credentialed by universities, and who published in the same journals their University colleagues did?
That strikes me as exactly the same model, but without the teaching aspect?
That strikes me as exactly the same model, but without the teaching aspect?
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Some_Institutes_for_Advanced_S...
A research university is a lot closer to a non research university than it is to a research institute.
Medical school faculty, especially in soft-money positions, might never set foot in a classroom. Some of them will even have labs that are almost entirely postdocs and technicians. This doesn't seem wildly different from a research institute to me. If anything, the funding is probably less stable too, since you're on your own.