Scientific enterprise refers to science

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

-based project

Project

A project in business and science is typically defined as a collaborative enterprise, frequently involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim. Projects can be further defined as temporary rather than permanent social systems that are constituted by teams...

s developed by, or in cooperation with, private entrepreneur

Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

s. For example, in the Age of Exploration, leaders like Henry the Navigator founded schools of navigation, from which stemmed voyages of exploration.

Examples of enterprising scientific organizations

Each of the organizations listed below, have the ability to conduct scientific research on an extended basis, involving multiple researchers over an extended time. Generally, the research is funded not only for the science itself, but for some application which shows promise for the enterprise. But the researchers, if left to their own choices, will tend to follow their research interest, which is essential for the long-term health of their chosen field. Note that a successful scientific enterprise is not equivalent to a successful high-tech enterprise or to a successful business enterprise, but that they form an ecology, a food chain.

• The Max Planck Institute
• The RAND
  RAND
  RAND Corporation is a nonprofit global policy think tank first formed to offer research and analysis to the United States armed forces by Douglas Aircraft Company. It is currently financed by the U.S. government and private endowment, corporations including the healthcare industry, universities...
  
   corporation -- founded as a research corporation. Did groundbreaking work in the field of artificial intelligence
  Artificial intelligence
  Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
  
  
• The Jet Propulsion Laboratory
  Jet Propulsion Laboratory
  Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The facility is headquartered in the city of Pasadena on the border of La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena...
  
  , founded by Theodore von Kármán
  Theodore von Karman
  Theodore von Kármán was a Hungarian-American mathematician, aerospace engineer and physicist who was active primarily in the fields of aeronautics and astronautics. He is responsible for many key advances in aerodynamics, notably his work on supersonic and hypersonic airflow characterization...
  
  
• Bell Laboratories is renowned for the quality of its scientific work.
• Xerox PARC is a research organization which has also spawned innovations such as the graphical user interface
  Graphical user interface
  In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
  
   and SRI
  SRI International
  SRI International , founded as Stanford Research Institute, is one of the world's largest contract research institutes. Based in Menlo Park, California, the trustees of Stanford University established it in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region. It was later...
  
  , where the computer mouse was invented, were explicitly founded with a research basis.
• IBM Research
  IBM Research
  IBM Research, a division of IBM, is a research and advanced development organization and currently consists of eight locations throughout the world and hundreds of projects....
  
  
• Hughes Research Laboratories
  Hughes Research Laboratories
  HRL Laboratories , was the research arm of the Hughes Aircraft Company. Its dedicated research center was established in 1960 in Malibu...
  
   was the location of the invention of the first working laser.
• The Howard Hughes Medical Institute
  Howard Hughes Medical Institute
  Howard Hughes Medical Institute is a United States non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded by the American businessman Howard Hughes in 1953. It is one of the largest private funding organizations for biological and medical research in the United...