Please please please do not give up.
The older I get, the more realistic my worldview is. BUT, please do not let this sway you in any way. I genuinely hope that NFs and NTs, will indeed go into science, and really be creative and create something very real, and new? I just left a bio-tech company, and I can assure you that whether it is the academia (and I have heard of horror stories too from my own brother, and friends, BUT... it is still a realistic money-driven, applicable environment, but I have always thought that it is less commercially driven or as pressurised as a corporate environment?), or it is the corporate environment, I do think that there are individuals in a high-level environment, who will indeed champion for you, to genuinely create something very innovative and new? I remember my old manager who always emphasized that I should allow the working environment to be creative. I should put less pressure on my customers (R&D scientists). I can see why. Cos if you are *more* pressurised, your brain is not going to think straight. It will fear instead. There are so many good decent managers like mine, who will do well by science, and are ethical, and can play the corporate game, AND churn out good decent scientific researches. Saying that, you do have to provide *some* kind of proof on feasibilities, and hence possibly why the high number of papers and patents to keep that door open.
There had been many kind of examples in the UK alone. Like viagra! It was a research for hypertension (high blood pressure), and angina (heart disease), but then it was later cross-marketed, and tested for other functions. The infamous one, like erectile disfunction. (Who would have thought?)
One thing as a scientist is that, you got to accept that what we do discover has to be applicable to mankind, and have to be commercialised. Unless it is the very very early stages of the research whereby nobody knows what use it has for the industry, or human development, but then if your uni think this, then they are very out of touch with the real world too. Or rather, they don't know what society needs. I think across the world, there are possibly a few unique university or research centres who are truly doing "forefront" technological and scientific researches, and if you want to get into those kind of places, you really got to seriously prove yourself ? I can see how some universities can churn out papers continuously to hold onto the prestige. Also, if you are that good, then you are indeed already the world best. In which case, ANY reputable university will want to headhunt you.
I think INFP can be creative scientists, but you got to take it with a pinch of salt, and also not to let the process stop you and your idealism cloud the system too. Cos you can indeed get the most out of it for yourself, and for society... As INFP'ers, I hope you persevere?
I myself was a chemistry graduate, and then I went into IT and caught that wave. I could've, before the big IT boom, did molecular modelling, or chemical databases. However, there isn't a high demand even back then, and only a handful of companies already did this and provided this in the real world. I just went into the next big thing, which was commercialised IT financial systems. You also had people who wrote the softwares, but they needed people to fix and to resolve system issues. Hence support, system analyst, support analysts role, or business analysts role are rife. That is how I stayed in the job market. Cos there was a need for my skills and background.
In this new scientific age, something called bio-infomatics is the new generational thing after the IT boom.... It is a current forefront field, which lacks the people to do the work, cos it is a multi-disciplinary area. You need a biology background (relating to genetics, DNA sequencing), computing (if you are doing algorithms), and statistics. It is worth considering going into these particular areas.
Now, I am hoping to change field, and go into something which would be quite next generational and more applicable to the masses like dietician... It will definitely be more commercialised.
I can also say that, after the informational age, the miniaturisation phase will indeed happen. So any kind of scientific researches now which will allow us to either
1- recycle materials, or
2- mass produce semiconductors using less raw materials like silicon
3- design smaller components, or find efficient way to miniaturise something, (and therefore use less materials)
4- find ways to be energy efficient, or to find ways to power-up gadgets (for miniaturisation)
The reasoning is that, businesses need to keep afloat. Only way to keep afloat is to sell more items, and bring in more businesses. Therefore if they sold many more items, using less materials, then they are likely to produce this for ALL humans across the globe.
This is the rationale. So any part of this area will indeed be wanted by the commercial world.
Also, don't forget that, you yourself can be an individual innovator, scientist at home. In the UK, I think this is quite common. Mr Dyson. Who did not like the current product, and he went and built his own prototypes, and did his own research at his own home? He believed in what he did. So he went out and proved to the world how efficient his concept was. He also built on this same science-efficient-innovator brand, and created several other types of products solving every day problems. (He found a way to create a new type of hand dryer that definitely kills germs and bacterias, and also is energy efficient?) Or you can go extreme, which is to always create something new, and try to solve every day problems.
Yoshiro Nakamatsu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Highest number of patents for a Japanese guy?)