Recreating the Creative Environment

1
Recreating the Creative Environment

• Donald W Braben
• Venture Research International
• and
• Department of Earth Sciences
• University College London
• don.braben_at_btinternet.com
• University of Uppsala
• 2 March 2009

2
Universities before 1970

• Autonomy generally protected by governments
• Tenured staff were usually given modest funds
  that they could use to tackle any problem that
  interested them
• Thus, the environment automatically encouraged
  and fostered creativity without constraints

3
Universities after 1970

• Governments have increasingly interfered in
  university governance, and in academic research
  strategy
• Universities treated increasingly as if they were
  businesses
• spending public money
• Creation of league tables
• Trust between governments and the academic sector
  has virtually disappeared

4
Some 20th century discoveries

• Max Planck
  Discovered that energy is quantised
• Albert Einstein Photoelectric effect.
  Special and General relativity
• Ernest Rutherford Founded
  nuclear physics
• Paul AM Dirac
  Predicted existence of positrons
• Wolfgang Pauli
  Exclusion principle. Predicted existence of
  neutrinos
• Erwin Schrödinger Founded
  wave mechanics
• Werner K Heisenberg Founded
  quantum mechanics. Uncertainty principle
• Alexander Fleming
  Discovered penicillin
• Enrico Fermi
  Built first nuclear reactor
• Oswald T Avery
  Discovered that DNA is the genetic molecule
• Linus Pauling
  Seminal work on the nature of the chemical bond
• Dorothy C Hodgkin Pioneered
  X-ray diffraction techniques
• Max Perutz
  Discovered structure of haemoglobin
• Francis Crick
• and James D Watson Discovered
  double-helix structure of DNA
• John Bardeen,
• Walter H Brattain,
• and William B Shockley Invented the
  transistor
• Dennis Gabor
  Invented holography

5
The Planck Club

• My affectionate name for a fictitious Club
  comprised of the scientists listed in Slide 3
  together with some 300 others of similar calibre
  whose collective scientific discoveries
  transformed the 20th century
• Indeed, the Planck Club in many ways defined the
  20th century
• I do not know of any member of that Club who
  needed to apply for a peer-reviewed grant

6
Academic Research

• Academic research has played a vital role in the
  global economy
• Almost every 20th century Planck-Club member
  worked at a university or a similar institute
• Will the universities spawn a 21st century Planck
  Club?

7
Changes to academic research introduced post
1970

• Written proposals essential
• Mandatory peer review of proposals peer preview
• Research prioritised
• Timetables and milestones
• The need to publish in high impact-factor
  journals
• Assessment of university departments
• Constraints thereby introduced are outside an
  individual researchers control. They lead to
  exploration by road map
• They reduce freedom and inhibit creativity
• That is no way to reach the unknown

8
Loss of youthful leadership?

• Average age at first tenured appointment
• 2006 42 (US)
• Up to 1960s 25-30
• Average age of Nobel Prize winners
• 1997-2006 66
• 1961-1970 56

9
Industrial Research

• Basic exploratory research has virtually
  disappeared
• Time-horizons have been sharply reduced
• Benchmarking

10
Research Funding

• Average OECD expenditure on RD as a percentage
  of Gross Domestic Product
• 1981 1.95
• 2005 2.30
• RD investments are increasing in quantity (a
  total of 687 billion in 2005).
• Money is not the problem, therefore. But what
  about the quality of these investments?
• Observable A dearth of major scientific
  discoveries

11
Some quotes

• Jules Henri Poincaré (1854-1912) Science is
  built up with facts, as a house is with stones.
  But a collection of facts is no more a science
  than a heap of stones is a house.
• Linus Pauling (1901-94) I have always liked
  working in some scientific direction that nobody
  else is working on.
• Richard Feynman (1918-88) answering the question
  how can one win a Nobel Prize? Its easy. Find
  out what your friends are doing, and go in the
  opposite direction. But above all, enjoy what you
  do.

12
Sciences Breakthrough of the Year, 1996 2006,
and Molecule of the Year, 1989 1995

• 2006 Proof of Poincarés conjecture
• 2005 Evolution in action Understanding
  evolutionary mechanisms
• 2004 Exploration of Mars Data from Rovers
• 2003 Dark energy dominates universe
• 2002 Small RNAs operate many cellular controls
• 2001 Nanotechnology The first molecular scale
  circuits
• 2000 An explosion of gene sequencing data in
  bacteria and humans
• 1999 Ability to isolate and maintain human
  pluripotent stem cells in culture
• 1998 Evidence that the expansion of the universe
  is accelerating
• 1997 Lamb cloned from a single cell of an adult
  sheep
• 1996 Protease inhibitors and chemokines can
  block HIV replication
• 1995 Confirmation of a new state of matter
  Bose-Einstein Condensates
• 1994 DNA repair enzyme system
• 1993 Tumour suppressor protein, p53
• 1992 Nitric oxide
• 1991 Buckyballs (Buckminster fullerenes)
• 1990 Manufacture of synthetic diamonds
• 1989 Polymerase chain reaction

13
The quality of exploratory research

• A new criterion for the assessment of exploratory
  research proposals. Quality here is related to
  the probability of achieving a high-potential
  objective. It is dependent on
• the nature of the objective (open-ended research
  higher quality)
• the nature of the approaches to risk
• minimise the risk? - i.e. action by the
  agency ( lower quality)
• manage the risk?- i.e. action by the
  researcher ( higher quality)
• the levels of trust (higher levels of trust
  higher quality)
• the relative value of money (fewer competitors
  higher quality)
• constraints on the use of funds (fewer
  constraints higher quality)

14
Venture Research

• Its primary objective is to help create a 21st
  century Planck Club

15
Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)

• When money is short, there is no alternative but
  to think.

16
Venture Research Strategy

• Aims to stimulate unpredictable discoveries.
  Fosters individual freedom, and creates an
  environment in which applicants can select
  themselves.
• Some details
• Funds should be "free"- that is available for
  use as required
• No boundaries
• No deadlines
• No milestones
• No peer review
• No priorities
• No specific objectives other than to understand
  or explore
• Researchers free to go in any direction at any
  time
• Risk to be selected and managed by the
  researchers
• Above all, it aims to foster mutual trust and
  respect

17
Risk and research

• Risk chance
• Risk danger
• Research is difficult but it is not intrinsically
  risky
• The more we associate risk with research the more
  we devalue research enterprise

18
Schematic A spectrum of research (1)
100
Mainstream research
Probability of success
0
High
Low
Potential Impact
19
Schematic A spectrum of research (2)
100
Probability of success
High-risk, high-reward research
0
High
Low
Potential Impact
20
Schematic A spectrum of research (3)
100
Venture Research
Probability of success
0
High
Low
Potential Impact
21
Venture Research 1980 1990

• Supported exploratory academic research in any
  field, anywhere.
• Total BP expenditure 15 million
• Final number of research programmes 26
• Number of scientific breakthroughs at least
  14
• Subsequently, there has been strong industrial
  interest in their development. Estimated value
  over the next decade 1 billion.

22
Some Venture Research Discoveries

• Mike Bennett
• and Pat Heslop-Harrison Discovered a new
  pathway for evolution and genetic control
• Terry Clark Pioneered the study of macroscopic
  quantum objects
• Stan Clough
• and Tony Horsewill Solved the quantum-classical
  transition problem by developing new
  relativity and quantum theories
• Steve Davies Developed small artificial enzymes
  for efficient chiral selection
• Nigel Franks,
• Jean Louis Deneubourg,
• Simon Goss, Chris Tofts Quantified the rules
  describing distributed intelligence in animals
• Herbert Huppert
• and Steve Sparks Pioneered the new field of
  geological fluid mechanics
• Jeff Kimble Pioneered squeezed states of light
• Graham Parkhouse Derived a novel theory
  of engineering design relating performance to
  shapes and materials
• Alan Paton, Eunice Allen,
• Anne Glover Discovered a new symbiosis between
  plants and bacteria
• Martyn Poliakoff
• Ken Seddon Transformed Green Chemistry
• Colin Self Demonstrated that antibodies in
  vivo can be activated by light
• Gene Stanley

23
The UCL Venture Research initiative

• UCL announced on 11 December 2008 the launching
  of The Provosts Venture Research Prize.
• The Provost will provide support for approved
  Venture Research projects for at least three
  years.
• The standard set will be exceptionally high.
• Typical costs might be 100K pa. We will be
  looking for the research that could radically
  change the way we think about an important
  subject and for researchers whose main
  requirement is freedom.
• It will be restricted to members of UCL
  initially, but we hope that other universities
  might wish to join our initiative. Each
  university would support from its own funds the
  cost of Venture Research projects each would
  approve.

24
Scientific Freedom The Elixir of Civilization
Donald W Braben, Wiley 2008.
25
UK based Nobel Prize winners emerging the decade
that work started, and average per decade of
real (2003) Government RD spend
D W Braben 2009
26
Number of UK based Nobel prize winners per decade
actual and expected if average before 1970
maintained
D W Braben 2009