Excellence in scientific
research
Prof. Ladislau Nagy
Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania
lnagy@phys.ubbcluj.ro
Outline
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The importance of scientific research in universities
Evaluation of research
Financing of scientific research
Excellence in the Babes-Bolyai University
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
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
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
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
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
Theodor Hansch, Nobel prize in physics 2005
- from his Nobel lecture -
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
Funding of scientific research
What the private sector finances?
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?
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
• 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)
From The state and quality of scientific research in Finland
– report By the Academy of Finland, 2009
• 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
• 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
Excellence in the Babes-Bolyai
University
• In fundamental research, based of scientific publications
and attracted grant money, our university is the first in
Romania
No of ISI articles, 2009
• (676 from Web of Science for BBU)
No. of research projects, 2009
Attracted funds in research projects, 2009
• 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)
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
Criteria for excellent scientific
research groups
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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
-> The University encourages beside the fundamental
research also the applied research, with immediate
financial benefit
• 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
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
Thank you for your attention