So you are saying that if Pittsburgh didn’t make its research facilities available the March of Dimes was going to build him his own facilities?The funding was by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, a non-profit created by President Roosevelt (you know, the one with the wheelchair), which got funding from donations to the March of Dimes. It was not funded by the University. University funded studies required a contract that would require a patent, he didn't want that.
Your example sucks, it is a great example of who will fund studies IF government funding disappears.
Salk didn’t just come up with idea overnight, like any big discovery, there was a lot of preparatory research that preceded his vaccine. The Foundation and March of dimes didn’t just ask Salk from scratch to invent a vaccine, his prior work led to their attention. And I’d wager that both entires were also funding other efforts at other schools at the same time
My example is perfect an example of the need for University research