Where does research go in the next century? How should it change to remain relevant and productive as the needs, aspirations and demands of the society in which it occurs evolve?
Such weighty matters were aired at Trinity College last week at its Trinity Week Academic Symposium 1999, an event introduced in 1992 as part of its 400th anniversary celebrations. Dean of Research Prof John Hegarty organised a group of international speakers from the humanities and science who attempted to define how research as a creative endeavour must reinvent itself to remain valuable.
"Research is a critical societal need," said Provost Prof Tom Mitchell. "Research is needed across the entire range of disciplines," he said during his introduction. The Government and its civil servants too often laboured under the mistaken idea that Ireland was too small to deliver credible research, he added.
The exponential growth of knowledge was tending to accentuate divisions between the various academic disciplines, according to Prof David Damrosch, professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University. Changes in the university academic culture were not keeping pace with this new intellectual culture.
Future research would have to be interdisciplinary however, he argued, and emerging researchers and academics would have to learn this. "If we don't teach them how to research in a multi-disciplinary way, it will be much more difficult for them to conduct research in a creative way."
The 20th century was the century of physics because of the tremendous strides made in that discipline, said Prof Claude Weisbuch, CNRS director of research at the Ecole Poly technique in Paris.
Things seemed fine so some questioned why there was a need to change, he said, but change was necessary. "We have to change because we have new responsibilities." Research must be relevant, the value of research must be apparent to the public and "We have to sell science to governments, to the public and to companies."
Prof Paul Langford, professor of modern history at Oxford University and chair of the Arts and Humanities Research Board of the UK, spoke of the "two cultures" of science and the arts and acknowledged that "We have been Cinderella and we will go on being Cinderella."
Prof Susan Greenfield, director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain and a research scientist who studies neurological disorders such as Parkinson's Disease, presented a disturbing picture of where future research might lead, debunking some notions but also acknowledging that there was a "spectrum of acceptability" to research. A common technical threat ran from laudable efforts to cure disease through genetic sciences to the evils of eugenics. "We have to have a lot of checks and balances so we know where to draw the line," she said.
She was highly critical of the funding mechanisms for science, which were often dominated by "grey beards" and she raised the idea that perhaps a lottery system could be used to fund projects. "At least it would be fair."
Science was not looking after its students, she said, who were given too little to be able to pursue their careers. "What is really going to save our science and indeed save our society is really innovative research," she concluded.