Excellence in scientific research Prof. Ladislau Nagy Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania [e-mail]

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Excellence in scientific researchProf. Ladislau
NagyBabes-Bolyai University, Cluj,
Romanialnagy_at_phys.ubbcluj.ro
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Outline

• The importance of scientific research in
  universities
• Evaluation of research
• Financing of scientific research
• Excellence in the Babes-Bolyai University

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The importance of scientific research in
universities

• In many countries the name University is used
  only for higher education institutions with an
  important scientific research activity
• Typically a university must offer doctoral
  studies
• In Romania this is not regulated yet
• We have 56 state universities, and 50 private
  universities
• Many of the universities has no important
  research activity

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The importance of scientific research in
universities

• Why is research important for a high education
  institution?
• The goal of any high education is to educate
  students with creative thinking
• The best training for creative thinking is the
  scientific research
• Without a world-class scientific research of the
  teaching staff, students cannot get the
  education needed for an innovative,
  knowledge-based society

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The importance of scientific research in
universities

• One of the most known ranking of the universities
  (the Shanghai list) takes into account only
  results in scientific research
• Other rankings (Times, QS)
• have a more complex
• methodology, based also
• on surveys, but the result
• is mostly the same

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Evaluation of research

• How to measure performance in scientific
  research?
• Number and quality of publications
• Citations
• Attracted money
• Is this enough?
• The ultimate reason for cultivating science
  should be the practical application, resulting
  in improving life quality
• We know, that a large percentage of the
  published scientific papers will not have
  practical applications
• But how can we determine, which one will have?
• Evaluation on the possible outcome is difficult

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Can a society invest just in research with a
certain, measurable benefit?How effective is
the goal oriented research?

• It may lead to results for the applied research,
  where the fundaments of the field are already
  known, and the goal is some improvement
• In case of fundamental research in most of the
  cases the results and their applicability is
  unpredictable
• Many scientists says, the curiosity driven
  research may lead to surprising applications,
  proven by the history of science and technology

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Theodor Hansch, Nobel prize in physics 2005-
from his Nobel lecture -
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Who should finance the scientific research?

• The situation for the applied research is more
  simple
• Private companies are willing to do it, because
  the benefit, profit and practical applications
  are predictable and close
• In the developed countries
• more than 50 of the science
• funding is coming from the
• private companies

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Funding of scientific research
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What the private sector finances?
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Funding of scientific research

• What about the curiosity driven research?
• The fundamental research is typically financed
  from public money (government, funding agencies
  etc.)
• Why should taxpayers pay for satisfying the
  curiosity of some scientists?
• Why should someone invest in scientific research,
  if the only outcomes are just scientific papers?

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Funding of scientific research

• In the US there are some voices, which are
  against the public funding of any scientific
  research
• They say, that exploring the Universe or finding
  the Higgs boson does not lead to public good
• Fortunately in the US and developed European and
  Asian countries the state funding of fundamental
  research is quite high
• In Romania the government does not give much
  importance for supporting science
• The research funding budget was cut to less then
  a half in 2009-10 because of the financial crisis

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• There is a correlation between the academic
  results of fundamental science (number of
  published papers, citations) and the innovative
  effect of the produced science to the economy
  and public good (with some exceptions)

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• From The state and quality of scientific research
  in Finland
• report By the Academy of Finland, 2009

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• Science and technology policies in advanced
  countries have placed increasing focus in recent
  years on the requirements of efficiency and
  impact.
• From the same report of the Academy of Finland
• The impact framework

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• University education and research is important in
  order to achieve the proposed impacts
• It would be desirable the support of university
  scientific research also by industry and private
  companies
• However, university research is typically
  financed by state

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Excellence in the Babes-Bolyai University

• In fundamental research, based of scientific
  publications and attracted grant money, our
  university is the first in Romania

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No of ISI articles, 2009

• (676 from Web of Science for BBU)

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No. of research projects, 2009
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Attracted funds in research projects, 2009
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• However, on an international comparison we need
  important improvement of our scientific research
• We are not in the first 500 universities on the
  Shanghai ranking (between 600-700)
• Improvement is needed both in fundamental (no of
  papers, citations) and applied research
  (partnership with the industry)

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Excellence in the Babes-Bolyai University

• In this year the BBU has launched the program for
  obtaining and establishing excellence in in
  several domains
• excellent scientific research groups
• excellent personalities
• excellent bachelor programs
• excellent master and PhD programs

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Criteria for excellent scientific research groups

• Relevant publications (books, articles)
• Patents
• Organization of important conferences
• Technological impact (funds attracted from the
  industry)
• Romanian and international graduate students
• National and international awards
• -gt The University encourages beside the
  fundamental research also the applied research,
  with immediate financial benefit

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• After the evaluation, there have been awarded
  excellence title to 32 research groups from the
  university
• By this excellence program we want to improve our
  fundamental and applied research also in
  international competition

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Conclusion

• Scientific research should have measurable
  benefit to public good
• However

Physics is like sex sure, it may give some
practical results, but that's not why we do
it Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate
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Thank you for your attention