COMMENTS ON
"SCIENCE IN A NEW SITUATION – THE ROLE OF BASIC RESEARCH"
Letter to the Norwegian Research Council, August 2004
Dino Karabeg
Associate Professor, University of Oslo
I followed your Science In A New Situation – The Role Of Basic Research conference
with interest and enthusiasm, feeling glad to see signs of positive change. With this
letter I would like to offer my contribution to your welcome and timely initiative.
What has prompted me to write was that for about a decade I have been doing
research at the University of Oslo that followed the lines recommended by several of
your invited speakers. I thought that my experiences might be of value to you if you
decide to consider reorganization.
This letter is organized as follows:
1. I give a summary of your invited speakers’ ideas that point to a specific new
role of basic research.
2. I point out that the present organization of academic research presents an
obstacle to fulfilling that new role.
3. I outline the development of the methodological approach to information at the
University of Oslo whose purpose is to overcome this obstacle.
4. I conclude by an appeal to the NRC to help us develop an academic culture in
Norway that supports the new role.
1. Suggestions by the invited speakers
The first speaker, John Ziman, stated that the new role of basic research is to serve
as “central intelligence agency” to modern civil society. Our world is changing fast. It
is necessary, observed Ziman, to have a certain number of able, knowledgeable and
free-thinking people who can look critically at where we are going and inform us
about the dangers and the opportunities.
Paul Haran suggested that we apply to basic research the environmentalist
and other kinds of systems thinking. We need to consider basic research as an
element of various societal and economic value chains, he said. Our key question
would then be how to organize the basic research environment (funding, promotion
criteria etc.) to secure that basic research can evolve in a manner that best suits its
key social roles.
Craig Calhoun argued that the distinction between the 'pure' and the 'applied'
research is artificial. Those two aspects of research have historically tended to
synergize and cross-fertilize. He suggested that research should be considered as
'basic' if it contributes general principles and insights. A basic researcher, Calhoun
said in the discussion, is the one who shows other researchers how to do research.
William Lafferty warned us that in today’s world there are issues that must be
given priority. Basic research, said Lafferty, is the one that suits the basic needs of
modern people and society.
2. Traditional organization of research prevents us from fulfilling the new role
The present organization of academic research in terms of traditional academic
disciplines presents an obstacle to fulfilling the new role: Each discipline has a
relatively fixed method and a fixed range of subjects to which the method can be
applied. The job of a physicist, for example, is to explore the ‘physical phenomena’
in terms of ‘molecules’, ‘masses’ and other concepts of traditional physics. An
obvious disadvantage of such division of academic labor is that asking what sort of
information is needed in this day and age is nobody’s job.
It has been said that to a person with a hammer in his hand everything looks
like a nail. The problem with the traditional organization of research is a peculiar
inversion: The job of a researcher is defined by the method, and not according to the
purpose that needs to be served. A related problem is that at present we do not have
a general method for creating information, which could be applied based on purpose.
The present organization of basic research is like the anecdotal searching for
the lost watch under a street lamp, where the ‘street lamp’ is a traditional scientific
discipline. This organization may be envisioned as isolated street lamps with large
dark areas between them, and with many researchers under each lamp. From the
point of view of the new role, such organization of research has the disadvantage
that it may leave ‘in the dark’ some of the areas where knowledge is vitally needed,
and keep ‘under a lamp’ the people who would be best qualified to create such
knowledge.
The traditional organization of academic research and the traditional idea of
basic research reflect the 19th century ‘reductionistic’ belief that the ‘basic sciences’
give us the true picture of reality, and that other questions can in principle be reduced
to such picture.
3. Information design – an initiative to adjust the basic research to the new role
Information design, as I have been using this term, stands simply for conscious or
purposeful creation and use of information. Information design needs to be
distinguished from the so-called traditional approaches, which follow the patterns of
traditional professions or disciplines, and from all sensationalistic and other
approaches that are based on free competition for our unguided attention.
The information design research has shown that it is possible to develop a
general-purpose methodology for creating and using information, which can be used
for making reliable information according to needs.
The information design initiative is intended to serve as a prototype or a seed
of an academic preoccupation with basic information (information that caters to basic
needs).
Information design has the potential to become a new research direction
emerging from Norway.
Enclosed with this letter is a copy of an article in which you may find a more
detailed description of the information design initiative.
4. My appeal
Having spent a decade doing research in the United States before moving to
Norway, I am aware that the support I have received for my information design
project here has been a combined effect of the old-style academic culture and the
Norwegian tradition, which emphasize tolerance, social responsibility and long-term,
free thinking. The Norwegian culture is now rapidly changing under the influence of
an international trend towards what we may call ‘the market values’. By emphasizing
competition and quantity, the emerging academic culture stimulates the researchers
to overproduce volumes of work in ‘safe’ areas; by emphasizing external funding, it
makes us less free.
When we are talking about giving a new direction to the Norwegian academic
culture, we may distinguish two options. One option is to make the research culture
more market oriented or market-like, and in that way join the global trend that has
been developing during the past several decades. Another option is to develop a
culture that supports the new role of basic research, and in that way take a leading
position in the development of a new and more meaningful trend.
Please help us develop an environment (funding, promotion system etc.)
for doing basic science in Norway where the word 'basic' is not used only in its
reductionistic interpretation, but also in the sense that refers to the basic
needs of modern people and society.
Developing such research culture is what our global circumstances require.
Developing such research culture in Norway will profile the Norwegian research
globally and give it a leading role in a most needed trend.