Science and Crisis

Francesco Sylos Labini

Science and Crisis

• What am I doing here ?

• The European crisis

• The Italian crisis

• The international crisis

• The Harvard here model

• Excellence versus Reality

• The EC science policy: Robin Hood in reverse

• Research and risk

• Perspectives

Outline

• Founded by 8 scientists (hard/social science, humanities)

• 14 editors (HS, SS, Hum + students, librarian, journalist)

• About 200 contributors

• In three years 2100 articles (1-2 articles per day)

• More than 30,000 comments

• More than 11 millions visits

• Average 10,000 visits/day - peak value 35,000 visits/day

• About 3,000 followers on Twitter

• About 10,000 members in the Facebook group

http://openletter.euroscience.org/

“If you think education is expensive,

try ignorance”









• Perspectives

Outline

• Its aim was to make the EU “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion”, by 2010

• Leveraging investment in R&D became a key element of this strategy following the Barcelona European Council’s objective to raise overall R&D investment to 3% of GDP by 2010.

The Lisbon Strategy (March 2000)

20012001

Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D

Business Enterprise Expenditure on R&D

Exp

endi

ture

on

R&

D

Eas

tern

Cou

ntr

ies

Four speed Europe

20122012E

xpen

ditu

re o

n R

&D

Eas

tern

Cou

ntr

ies

Four speed Europe

Researchers/1000 workers in business enterprisesFi

nlan

d

Dan

mar

k

Swed

en

Fran

ce

Aus

tria

Irel

and

Bel

gium

Ger

man

y

EU

15

Net

herl

and

EU

28

UK

Spai

n

Port

ugal

Ital

y

Gre

ece

Finl

and

Dan

mar

k

Swed

en

Fran

ce

Aus

tria

Irel

and

Bel

gium

Ger

man

y

EU

15

Net

herl

and

EU

28

UK

Spai

n

Port

ugal

Ital

y

Gre

ece

Total unemployment

Youth

Unemployment > 45% 30%-45% 20%-30%

<10% NonEU

10%-20%









• Perspectives

Outline

• Reformation process of higher education

• Heavy financial cuts

• Introduction of a research evaluation agency (ANVUR) that performed a controversial research assessment exercise and played a key role in the definition of the new hiring rules for academic staff and in the distribution of funding to the “excellence poles”.

(see FSL http://www.euroscientist.com/sake-italian-science-culture/)

The Italian crisis

National University

Budget: -20%

Budget for curiosity driven research projects: -100 %

Roma 21 febbraio 2014 Paolo Rossi 26

Number of professors+researchers: -20%

Roma 21 febbraio 2014 Paolo Rossi 27

Recruitments 2006-2013: -90%

Number of professors+researchers (physics): -40%

29

Number of non permanent staff: : + 100%

Number of tenure tracks -90%









• Perspectives

Outline

• Increasing number of scientific articles but more rapid increasing number of retractions

• Increasing role of tecno-evaluation

• Large number of PhD and Postdoc with low salaries and little possibility of obtaining a permanent position

• Small number of élite researchers

The international crisis:

some evidences









• Perspectives

Outline

Present day higher education and research policy

“The rich gets richer and the poor

gets poorer”

‘Harvard Here’ Model

• For many governments, the world class university has become the panacea for ensuring success in the global economy. This is especially true in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, albeit the trends were apparent before this.



• Institutions and nations are constantly measured against each other using indicators of global capacity and potential in which comparative and competitive advantages come into play, as part of a wider geo political struggle.



• Institutions and nations are constantly measured against each other using indicators of global capacity and potential in which comparative and competitive advantages come into play, as part of a wider geo political struggle.

• These factors are driving governments and institutions to make profound changes to their higher education systems, pursue more elite agendas, alter their education programmes and privilege some disciplines and fields of inquiry in order to conform to indicators set by global rankings.

‘Harvard Here’ Model:

Does it work ?

• Harvard operating expenses = 44% founds of all Italian universities

• Harvard has 21,000 students 130,000 euro/student

• Typically EU: 10,000 euro/student

66 Italian universities

Bill

ion

s o

f E

uro

s

Number of universities per million people

Other research institutes

Universities

Other research institutes

Universities

USA FR DE NL UK ES IT









• Perspectives

Outline

High Temperature Superconductivity

Nobel Prize in Physics 1987

High Tc Superconductivity

Scanning Tunneling microscope


Scanning Tunneling Microscope

Giant Magneto Resistence


(relevant paper 1988)

Scanning Tunneling Microscope

Graphene

Nobel prize in physics 2010

2010

Graphene

Rischio e Ricerca

“The history of science has been and should be a history of competing

research programmes ... the sooner the competition starts, the better

for progress.”

(1970, Imre Lakatos)

Competition of ideas versus competition of people

Research is risk

Rewarding what is today recognised as excellence is

trivial !

See FSL:

•http://blog.euroscientist.com/diversification-of-nations-research-systems/

•http://www.euroscientist.com/evaluation-dogma-of-excellence-replaced-by-scientific-diversity/

http://blog.euroscientist.com/diversification-of-nations-research-systems/

http://www.euroscientist.com/evaluation-dogma-of-excellence-replaced-by-scientific-diversity/

http://www.euroscientist.com/evaluation-dogma-of-excellence-replaced-by-scientific-diversity/

“Reinforce excellence, dynamism and creativity of European research"

“ERC funds excellent researchers”

ERC

Nobel Prize

Novoselov, K. S.; Geim, A. K.; Morozov, S. V.; Jiang, D.; Zhang, Y.; Dubonos, S. V.;

Grigorieva, I. V.; Firsov, A. A. (2004). Science 306 (5696): 666–669.

M. Brune, J.M. Raimond, P. Goy, L. Davidovich and S.

Haroche, Phys. Rev. Lett. 59,

1899 (1987)

Research is risk

The real problem is to understand whom to reward today, among the large

magma of good quality researchers, and how to pick those who would become

excellent tomorrow !

?

?

We conclude that scientific impact (as reflected by publications) is only weakly limited by funding. We suggest that funding strategies that

target diversity, rather than “excellence”, are likely to prove to be more productive.

Research is risk

Research is risk

Technological leading countries

beyond having the largest production of scientific papers and the largest number

of citations, do not specialize in few scientific domains. Rather, they diversify

as much as possible their research system

Diversification

thus represents the key element that correlates with scientific and

technological competitiveness









• Perspectives

Outline

EC research funding

• About 10% of National funding

• Imitation at the National level of the EC “best practices”

• Horizon 2020 (60 billions euros)

• Top-down research lines

• Curiosity driven programs: ERC / Marie Curie fellowships

Are these really “best practices” for science? See FSL:

• http://blog.euroscientist.com/european-science-policy-research-risk/

• http://www.researchresearch.com/index.php?option=com_news&template=rr_2col&view=article&articleId=1346425

http://blog.euroscientist.com/european-science-policy-research-risk/

http://www.researchresearch.com/index.php?option=com_news&template=rr_2col&view=article&articleId=1346425

http://www.researchresearch.com/index.php?option=com_news&template=rr_2col&view=article&articleId=1346425









• Perspectives

Outline

Science can be effective in the national welfare only as a member of a team, whether the conditions be peace or war. But without scientific progress no amount of achievement in other direction can insure our

health, prosperity and security as a nation in the modern world

Science The Endless Frontier

A Report to the President by Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, July 1945

Presidential Address: What's So Special About Science And How Much Should We Spend on It?William H. Press (Science 15 November 2013)

The exponential growth

As a factor of production, technology produces wealth and produces more

technological progress, enabling a virtuous cycle of exponential growth …investments in

basic research are variously estimated as ultimately returning between 20% and 60%

per year

Wil

liam

H. P

ress

(Sci

ence

15

Nov

embe

r 20

13)

The invisible hand is visible and working hard ! W

illi

am H

. Pre

ss

(Sci

ence

15

Nov

embe

r 20

13)

Starting supporting grants

Micro HD (Nobel phys. 2007, EU+US)

Micro integrated circuits (US airforce, Nasa)

Multi touch (NSF, US)

Internet (NSF, Darpa, CERN, …)

GPS (US airforce)

Siri (Darpa, Univ.)

LCD Screen (Darpa)

Litium Batteries (DoE, NSF,…)

Risk and Innovation

“The important thing for government is not to do things which individuals are doing already, and to do them a little better or a little worse; but to do those things which at present are not

done at all.”

John Maynard Keynes, The End of Laissez-Faire (1926)

Innovation requires risk

The key role of the visible hand is to build the infrastructures that are necessary but not sufficient

for the economic development

Risk in research and innovation requires

• Diversification

• Adaptability

• Cooperation

• Long times

How can I reach the long term if I do not survive in the short

one?









• Perspectives

Outline

The sacrifice of new generations on the altar of

austerity is the loss of a common

heritage

Long term problem !

The modern Ifigenia

There is no effort to cure the R&D lag neither at the national level nor at the European level

There is a net transfer of human and financial resources from South to North

Austerity measures make things worst both on the short and long term

Human resources

Infrastructures

Only a massive state investment at the European level in R&D can invert the

trend

•focus on basic research as the core of post-austerity policies

•diversification of research systems,

•human resources,

•infrastructures,

•on the filters between “basic” and “applied” research.

Scientists from different European countries describe in this letter that, despite marked heterogeneity in the situation of scientific research in their respective countries, there are

strong similarities in the destructive policies being followed.

This critical analysis, highlighted in Nature and simultaneously published in a number of newspapers across Europe, is a wake-up call to policy makers to correct their

course, and to researchers and citizens to defend the essential role of science in society.

The national policymakers of an increasing number of Member States, along with European leaders, have completely lost touch with the reality of research.

They have chosen to ignore, but we are determined to remind them because their ignorance can cost us the future. As

researchers and citizens, we form an international network used to exchange information and propositions. And we are

engaging in a series of initiatives at the national and European level to strongly oppose the systematic destruction

of national R&D infrastructures and to contribute to the construction of a bottom-up social Europe.

We call on researchers and citizens to defend this position with us. There is no alternative. We owe it to our children, and to the children of

our children.

Thank you ! And thanks to JMG !

Science and Crisis

Education

Transcript of Science and Crisis