Ramblemuse Touch Points

In a column in the June 7th edition of the newly revamped Science News, Harvard University Provost Steven Hyman points out the disparities in attitudes between trends in research funding in the U.S. versus those in Singapore and China.

A major difference between the United States and Singapore and China is the rapid growth rates in these countries, inspiring optimism. In all Singapore’s science sectors, and especially Shanghai’s industrial sector, there is a palpable sense that infrastructure and funding will be available, and that what is limiting are talented people and ideas. Such people are being actively recruited as governments attempt to build modern knowledge-based economies. A marker of the sense of scientific opportunity in Singapore and China is the migration of mid-career scientists from the United States, England, and Australia to Singapore, and the return of talented Chinese scientists who had been educated in the United States to permanent research positions in China. Their return resulted from the perception of greater opportunity.

Having watched at couple of colleagues in the LLNL climate program return to India, from the sense of being able to pursue a scientific career rather than merely a path of survival, Hyman’s perspective is a more widely traveled verification of my own, more local, observations. The larger issue, however, is not just where scientists will pursue careers, but if they will even enter science. As Hyman concludes:

Ideally the new [next] administration will craft policies to produce steady growth in federal research budgets, more welcoming immigration policies for foreign scientists and respect for science. Without such policies, many of our most talented students will gravitate to endeavors other than science, and Americans will increasingly read of breakthroughs coming from other shores.

In short, if entering science isn’t a viable career, if there’s little or no career future beyond supporting the academic structure by being a postdoc, why go there at all?

An additional question is whether or not, particularly at national labs, the environment being created is one that will be attractive to the next generation of potential scientists. This time I turn to Infoworld editor Eric Knorr’s blog, as he talks about technology and culture change.

Forks in the road

If you’ve been watching the technology industry as long as I have, you may like to think you can detect an historical turning point while it’s happening. The big picture stuff is the most fun. Today, for example, as the Internet generation grows up and achieves Twitter velocity, I’m convinced we’re on the brink of a cultural transformation that will go way, way beyond the effects of the Web’s first decade. But sorry, my sixth sense lacks the power to get much more specific than that.

Knorr isn’t alone in his observations. USA today ran a series of articles a bit ago on Generation Y, the generation now entering the workforce.

• Generation Y: They’ve arrived at work with a new attitude
• Gen Y’s attitudes differ from parents’

Knorr’s comment about “achieving Twitter velocity” may become very pertinent to recruitment and retention. How willing will the first Internet generation, the “Twitter velocity” generation be to moving into a working environment, such as what’s being implemented at LLNL, where electronic connectivity is severely limited, where access to personal email is limited, and YouTube is blocked? The latter has occurred despite a number of scientists and journals, as for example, New Scientist, using YouTube as a distribution medium for visualization.

• The Vulcan Project — High Resolution Fossil Fuel CO2 Emissions and Transport over the United States
• Is this the theory of everything?

In short, video has become just another tool by which scientists communicate results. Communication in the outside world of research moves at speeds approaching Knorr’s “Twitter velocity”.

It will be interesting to see what evolves between a stated desire to “recruit the best and the brightest”, an emerging environment of “we can’t help you unless you have an explicit programmatic justification”, and the career outlook and desires of the best and the brightest of Generation Y. My expectation is that, unless there is an environment that facilitates their career and communication, young scientists simply won’t go there, except as a last resort. Why bother with a lagging world?