World science - the state of science in the world / John Sexton

One of the measures of a nation's creativity is the degree of cooperation with other nations

When Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Union, allowed Andrei Sakharov to go to the US In 1988, one of the Russian nuclear scientist's first stops was the New York Academy of Sciences. Members of the Academy's Executive Committee were then among the leaders of the struggle for Sakharov's freedom and we encouraged the scientific community to mobilize for this struggle, and Sakharov wanted to thank them for their efforts.

The story illustrates how much the world, and especially the world of science, has changed in the half century that has passed since then. When Sakharov was released, only a few countries invested in serious scientific research, and even fewer allowed scientists to conduct research independent of national interests. The researchers had to overcome high hurdles when their work required collaboration with scientists in other countries. Today things are quite different.

Globalization (which I sometimes call "planetization" to emphasize that the scope of "globalization" is much wider than is sometimes interpreted) is a distinct characteristic of the current period in the history of the human race. There is nothing new about it. In 2004, the historian John Coatsworth already described globalization as "what happens when the movement of people, goods, and ideas between countries and between regions becomes faster", and this process has continued in one way or another since the day man migrated outside of the African continent. But now something else is happening: the world is getting smaller. Again it is impossible to defend against the effects of economic, political, cultural and spiritual events that take place in distant countries. Global society functions like a network of creativity and innovation, and there are several "capitals of thought" that are central nodes in this network. If during the Renaissance in Italy, the talents wandered between Milan, Venice, Florence and Rome, today most of the citizens with the ability to invent easily move between Silicon Valley, Shanghai, London and New York.

From Aristotle to Stephen Hawking, scientists have always aspired to operate outside the boundaries of sovereignty; Indeed, science, by its very nature, is not subject to boundaries. Copernicus' hypothesis about the solar system led to Galileo's astronomical discoveries, which paved the way for Newton's laws of gravity. But we must not forget that between these breakthroughs, which are closely related, hundreds of years have passed. For most of history, scientific progress was steady but slow, due to the distance that separated the scientists, the limitations on acquiring an education, the lack of resources and interference from political factors. Today the pace of innovation is much faster.

Indicators of research activity indicate an outbreak of scientific activity and a strong trend of international cooperation. Give your opinion on these data: in 1996, about 25% of the scientific articles were written by authors from two or more different countries; Today their rate exceeds 35%. The rate of publications by American scientists in collaboration with scientists from other countries increased from 16% in 2006 to 30% in 2008. The number of scientific publications published by Chinese scientists in 2008 was almost six times greater than in 1996; Today, about 10% of all articles published in the world originate in China. In 1989, South Korea was not included in the top 10 countries in patent filings at the US Patent and Trademark Office. Today she is third in this ranking. Since 1995, Turkey has increased its investment in research and development almost sixfold and the number of researchers there has increased by 43%. And so on and on, and all the numbers point to the simple fact that there has been a tremendous change in the scope and scope of scientific research across political borders and within countries that previously had no representation in the important scientific arena.

Although the life of a scientist is not necessarily consciously global, globalization pervades the scientific enterprise in several distinct ways. At its core, and in fact in its essence, globalization is so simple and clear that it cannot be noticed: the speed and convenience of today's communication has accelerated the flow of ideas and resulted in the world of science being connected today as never before. Although this increased connectivity did not change the fundamental goal - the search for knowledge and the advancement of humanity - the increasing globalization of scientific research has created a more open intellectual environment, which attracts more and more talented people to the scientific discourse.

For example: a new drug called artemisinin has recently brought great progress in the fight against malaria. In September 2011, one of the Chinese scientists who led the development of the drug was awarded the Lesker-DeBayky prize for clinical medical research. But the drug was discovered in China about 40 years ago, at the personal request of Chairman Mao Zedong, who wanted to help North Vietnam in its war against the United States. The isolation of China and its scientists delayed word of the discovery to reach the rest of the world by seven years, and the availability of the drug by many more years. And in the 40s, the German-American biophysicist Max Delbruck and the Italian microbiologist Salvador Luria conducted the famous experiment together in which they showed that the resistance of bacteria to viruses is a hereditary trait. It was in-depth work, and they communicated using the most reliable and efficient tool in those days: the postal service.

Today, through the Internet and social networks, we perceive the concept of community differently: we are more used to coming into intellectual contact with strangers, we can expand the talent pool in new and more successful ways and build deeper relationships with our peers. Scientists today continuing the lineage of collaborations will probably use Skype, Facebook, file-sharing networks, or a combination of all three. The scope of data transfer is wider, and its transfer is fast. More peers, and even non-scientists, participate in the discussion, and the volume of data that can be collected, reviewed and processed is relatively large. These differences redefine what collaboration is and who is a colleague. Mathematicians and neuroscientists from New York University collaborate with their colleagues sitting on the campuses of the universities in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai almost as closely as with their colleagues in the adjacent rooms, and on all campuses they benefit from the most advanced equipment even if it is physically located on another campus.

Due to the high connectivity, the physical location is losing its importance. The validity of a study dealing with differences in language processing certainly increases if the experiment is conducted in several different places. Researchers based in New York can conduct a study that involves extremely sensitive measurements to read the magnetic fields in the brain despite the disturbances that the subway in the city may create simply because the measuring device is located in another country. In each project, scientists all over the world can overcome the limitations of working hours. Researchers are usually incredibly hardworking people, and they tend to visit their labs late at night or forget holidays when they are in the middle of an experiment. If you split the work between laboratories located in different time zones, you can overcome these clock limitations, work around the clock and reach results faster. Scientists around the world often use the different time zones to make their work easier.

The possibility to communicate quickly over any distance changed the research agenda fundamentally. New topics emerged that so far had not come up or had not been examined. These issues include climate change, food safety and humanitarian issues such as water engineering and tropical diseases. In the national agenda of a sovereign state, these issues may be second or third in importance, but in the agenda of global research they are paramount. And so, the speed and ease of communication not only encouraged the formation of international research teams, but the very growth of these teams even changed the research questions and brought the all-human challenges to the forefront of scientific research.

To enable the execution of many of these research projects at peak efficiency, real global research is needed. It is impossible to properly investigate the sea level or the pressing problems of city management in a world that is becoming more and more urban, unless it is done on the enormous scale that globalization makes possible. Such projects require the collection of data from all over the world, and they overpower human and other resources in a way that was unimaginable 25 years ago. Such undertakings are as complicated as the mighty crescendo of a symphony orchestra. We would not have been able to create such a branched research had it not been for the tremendous capabilities we have today, which include a change, which is sometimes not noticed, in the way things are done, the possibility of adding new active factors and the possibility of breaking through the barrier of distance and time. It's like putting together from many eyes one big scientific eye, capable of making observations.

In carrying out all these research projects, in view of the abundance of talents from all over the world and the ease of information transfer and cooperation, the global scientific community is less dependent today on the USA and Western countries. Many countries today see investment in science and technology as a means of building their economy. Research and development budgets increase accordingly, and this results in more stable academic collaborations with colleagues from other countries. For example, the number of doctorate degrees in science and engineering subjects issued in universities in Asia, and especially in China, is increasing. Fifteen years ago, the number of scientific articles published in the US was ten times greater than in China and the names of Chinese scientists were hardly seen in scientific journals. Two years ago, China took second place in the world in scientific publications. It is possible that next year you will also pass the USA. In the last ten years, China, India, and Brazil have more than doubled their spending on research and development, and their joint share of total global spending on research and development has therefore increased from 17% to 24%. In a report published by the US Patent Office in 2010, it was found that since 2008 most of the patents registered in the US are not created there. And a Thomson Reuters report shows that China surpassed the US and Japan in the number of new patent applications in 2011.

Increasing this activity all over the world is certainly for the better. Globalization, as it manifests itself in international collaborations in "big science" ventures, is already a matter of course. The Human Genome Project, the International Space Station, the large particle accelerator at CERN near Geneva and the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) in France are just a few examples. The globalization of the sciences is a blessing to humanity.

However, we should be careful not to exaggerate our achievements. While it is easier for scientists to keep in touch with each other and the scientific community has become more cohesive, there are some risks and challenges that should not be taken lightly. Most of them stem from the great tension of our generation: while the world is becoming more and more connected, individuals and institutions are looking to set new boundaries.

Although the discourse surrounding science is expanding its scope and includes more and more people, many still do not share it. All over the world there are people who have no or almost no access to the communication revolution or the Internet, and certainly not to education and advanced technological knowledge. As long as this is the case, too many people will be left out of the important discussions. The real danger is that this trend reinforces itself, and the gap between the scientific capabilities of the developed countries and the capabilities of the less developed countries will increase and widen.

Similarly, we must guard against turning a deaf ear to voices from the fringes challenging the establishment because some of our greatest breakthroughs have come from those fringes. In other words, we must take into account the dangers inherent in "groupthink" or "fast-thinking". While the new technologies bring scientists and non-scientists together in an incredibly efficient and good way, the new media and virtual communities can also set the prevailing views. For similar reasons, we will also have to get better at finding out the intellectual property. If many suspect that the fruits of their research are not properly respected elsewhere, this will have a devastating effect on collaboration and the development of new concepts.

Immigration laws can also disrupt the new global research. Although communication and cooperation are much easier now, many institutions, especially universities, today encounter difficulties related to immigration. Research partners do not receive entry and residence visas, graduate students are admitted to study but cannot enter the country because of their citizenship. National security is rightly of paramount importance in the US and other Western countries, but we will have to balance things in a more correct way if we want to be full partners in the global science community.

Even among the established research institutions, despite globalization, some disturbing tensions remain, some of which even increase because of it. And even though the best in universities adapt themselves to globalization and fundamentally change their structure (the president of Duke University, Richard Broadhead, said not long ago that by the middle of this century the major universities will be a "global university network"), the institutions most experienced in global functioning are the corporations the big ones The universities and the corporations are tightening their cooperation; Commercial companies fund more and more academic research. This alliance raises several issues that the scientific community needs to consider.

First, since universities are primarily interested in expanding human knowledge (in the sciences and other professions), they serve as incubators for fundamental research. Some of those studies paved the way for enormous, sometimes unexpected, progress. And since the companies are interested in certain results and products, fundamental research is less important to them (the golden age of Bell Labs has passed.) Therefore, to the extent that research funding depends on the interests of commercial companies, fundamental research budgets will decrease, which is a shame. Second, we have already seen that there can be an implicit connection between corporate funding and certain research results. Pharmaceutical companies, for example, have interfered with research in ways that have led to dubious science supporting dubious claims about drug efficacy.

This does not mean that science should not receive funding from companies at all. But an international society, operating itself outside political borders, can have a huge impact and we must remind ourselves that science serves knowledge. We must strengthen structures and processes aimed at protecting and enabling the development of science.

The flourishing of joint research is a good thing, if only because it encourages governments, both Western and (increasingly) Eastern, to invest considerable resources in scientific research. However, the incentives to participate in multinational teams may erode if we do not address some basic issues. For example: will a scientist be able to receive funding for a single project, or projects related to each other, from two different sovereign states? And if so, could these be all two countries or only political allies?

As of today, when many universities are eligible for funding from governments in the Middle East and Asia, the rules governing the grants from the US government (and especially the "export holding" rules) burden many of these multi-financed projects and even prevent them. Is the restrictive policy good for science? Will it, if carefully implemented, isolate American scientists in the long run? And in general, who owns the intellectual property produced by multinational teams, especially teams that received funding from more than one sovereign government? Does this only depend on the contract signed between the entities involved, or do the governments, by virtue of being the entities that finance parts of the project (which are sometimes difficult to separate from the rest), have rights in the matter?

Many institutions, especially in the USA, are well aware of the use of funding statistics as a touchstone for research quality. Is it possible that only US-sourced funding will be included in these rankings?

As the forces of globalization chart the course of scientific research in this century, these super issues will determine the value science will have in our lives. Will scientific research be open to all, or only to those with privileged rights? Will he concentrate on the needs of the whole world or only on narrow interests? Will the scientific community accept revolutionary ideas or stick to popular opinion? Will the countries adhere to outdated laws or will the need to be flexible enough to allow deep collaborations in the fields of research?

The global scientific debate is more accessible today than at any other time, and participation and progress in it is done by virtue and not by grace. The frequently changing exchanges provide more opportunities than before to learn, to question presuppositions and to break down the walls between professions and fields. However, the path we are on is never a path that necessarily only leads up. We must make sure that this will indeed be the case.

It is no coincidence that the Renaissance period in Europe brought so many discoveries that still shape our lives. The cities of the country were capitals of thought that gathered the best minds of the time and formed groups of individuals who often asked each other questions that touched on the then accepted hypotheses. In the end, the participants in the discussion became independent enough to devote all their time to the pure truth. Even today we should aspire to this ideal at least. And here we are back to Sakharov. Give your opinion on this: why were so many of the leaders of the resistance to Soviet rule scientists? One reason is that science has allowed brilliant people to excel even in an environment of scarcity and bureaucratic oversight by the authorities. The scientists, by necessity and the very nature of their work, had some contact with the international community. And perhaps the most important reason is that scientific research encourages a certain level of acuity of thought that will naturally lead a person to find fault with a corrupt tyrannical system.

This is what happened in the case of Alaa Alaswani, a respected Egyptian writer who was one of the leaders in denouncing the Mubarak regime before he was ousted. Between writing and public speaking, he is also an active dentist with an advanced degree from the University of Illinois. According to a profile article written about him in the New York Times in 2008: "His studies for a master's degree in dentistry for three years in the USA were the most important period of his life. He admits that the concept he had of the US before was a caricature, but his trips there and the things he discovered there, including a church of the gay community and a 'Black Pride' organization - convinced him that not all of the image of the US is the 'imperialism', as he put it, that is attributed her in the Arab countries."

Besides the benefits of all the discoveries that will be made in global science, the spread of scientific research and training in the sciences will be an integral part of the development and mixing of societies around the world. There will be no country that will allow itself to give up the good that grows from science, and when the countries train young people for science in universities, they will train a public that thinks in global terms, demands responsiveness from the institutions and thrives despite the local setbacks. These new leaders, according to Sakharov's legacy, will be the vanguard of the next phase of globalization.

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About the author

John Sexton (Sexton) was appointed the 15th dean of New York University in 2001. He was chairman of the executive committee of the New York Academy of Sciences from 2007 to 2011 and is currently chairman emeritus.

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