Letter from the editor

Being a good scientist is as much about communication as it is about the research process itself. Scientists need to be able to communicate effectively with their peers in their field and with the wider scientific community. They also need to be able to explain what they are doing – and why it matters – to a much wider audience. Part of that involves explaining the science itself.

This issue of Euroscientist has two articles, by Michael White and Gilles Bogaert, about exactly this – communicating science to the interested public through that excellent medium, cafés scientifiques. Begun in 1997, cafés scientifiques now take place around the world. Scientists make themselves available to explain scientific concepts and issues, discuss implications and answer questions. The audience has an opportunity to learn from scientists themselves rather than through an intermediary, and is able to put questions directly to the expert. It is a formula that has met with great success.

Universities are also in the spotlight in this issue. David Livesey discusses major strategic issues for European universities using the analogy of universities as creative organisations and Jean-François Mela writes specifically about the implications of some of these strategic issues for French universities.

Next month is the month of the Euroscience Open Forum – ESOF2008 in Barcelona. Now an established biennial event, ESOF brings together hundreds of scientists as speakers with thousands of scientists and interested members of the lay public over four days. To give you a taste of what is on offer, this issue of Euroscientist has interviews with three of the keynote speakers who say what they consider is important for European science, what advice they would give to young scientists and why ESOF is a great event for everyone, young or old, scientist or not. See you there!

Alma Swan, Editor

Quentin Cooper was also involved in another café recently, again on evolution, and this is what he has to say about it;

“Earlier this year I hosted the first Café as part of an ongoing series of events leading up to Darwin year – 2009 will be the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th of the publication of On The Origin of Species. The speaker was the excellent Dr Bob Bloomfield from the Natural History Museum in London, and we had video-conference links to Ramallah and Tunis, with most of the audience being academics of one kind or another. Bear in mind that evolution is not taught at most Islamic schools and universities – it is not just off the syllabus but off the radar – and anything on Darwin has to be handled sensitively. With the help of some of the senior academics in Tunis and Ramallah we managed to focus not on the conflict between Darwinism and Creationism but on the room for both approaches to co-exist – the idea that evolution can help explain the diversity of life but does not preclude some form of divine spark having set the whole process in motion. I’m not saying anyone involved will be signing up for courses in Evolutionary Biology anytime soon, but while other kinds of event might have stressed the differences between Islamic teaching and scientific understanding, this emphasised the common ground. That exploration of what we share through science is just as important as any explanation of discoveries or theories, and it’s what, for me, makes Café Scientifiques so unfailingly rewarding. Long may science stay caffeinated”.

These are just two examples of thoroughly absorbing, challenging and stimulating events. If you want to know more, please get in touch with your local British Council office or look at our ‘café sci’ web page: http://www.britishcouncil.org/science-cafesci.htm

Michael White, British Council (UK)

The 10th anniversary meeting of Science Cafés

Science cafés (cafés scientifique) are interesting events which anyone can attend, meet specialists in various fields of science and talk about scientific issues. People from all sorts of cultures and educational backgrounds come along. This bright idea was born in Paris and Lyon in 1997, the brainchild of Philippe Chomaz. Michel Crozon, who invented “la fete de la science” in the 1980s, has said that the idea of science cafés is the most interesting initiative in recent years.

At the 10th birthday meeting last October in Corsica, Philippe Chomaz explained his original idea: “In ‘97, as scientists, we wanted to meet people and discuss just as human person. Not to prove nor teach, just share our knowledge and points of view. We made an announcement at the radio: scientists wait for you in this bar, every evening during 3 days. The question was then: will people join? The answer was yes - many people went to meet the scientists”.

The meetings were organised in pleasant cafés with drinks, songs or other creative and entertaining events. After Lyon and Paris, similar meetings took place in the UK and Denmark, with the same very enthusiastic and successful experiences in these places, too, reaching out to scientists, artists, politicians and industrialists. At the Paris International meeting in 2004, it was decided to develop a world network of cafés scientifiques, organised by our UK colleagues with good financial support from the Wellcome Trust. Since the 2005 WYP, a network of organisers has been established around the world and these are very active.

Sixty cafés scientifiques events have been organised in Japan, and some good suggestions have emerged from them. For example, because asking certain types of question is easier by SMS, this technology can be used to allow the audience in a café to ask possibly embarrassing questions of the speaker. There is everywhere a growing interest in science cafés and each country is finding its own ways to adapt the concept to the local culture.

It has also been found that organising cafés is a starting point for other innovative new initiatives for knowledge dissemination. In France, with more than 200 café scientifique events organised for this year, the concept has led to a new newspaper, a new culture/sciences web site and a kind of YouTube for science – tvSciences.com[1], which offers selected science videos for free.

We should also aim to interest and stimulate the young scientists of the future. Organising or attending cafés scientifiques is a way to stimulate creativity and imagination which is why ‘Café Juniors’, events specifically for young people, are now to be encouraged.

Gilles Bogaert , CNRS/IN2P3/Ecole polytechnique, Palaiseau (France)

The reform of Universities in Europe: Autonomy, Diversity & Excellence

Universities as creative organisations

I was recently asked to talk at a conference about enhancing the strategic positioning of universities and to do so with others so that the participants had the perspective of different actors. In doing so, I took the opportunity of the word ‘actors’ to pursue my love of analogies and my having always seen universities as creative organisations.

I justified my view by stating that the administrative, leadership and managerial challenges which universities face are much more like those faced by opera houses and theatres than they are like those faced by other types of business. Accordingly it was with relish that I rose to the challenge of presenting an actor’s perspective on how to enhance the strategic positioning of universities.

Before proceeding with my performance I needed to establish whether I and the other actors in the session were in the same production. Clearly we had not been chosen to offer our individual interpretations of the same part. My contribution had been preceded by the student perspective so the audience was immediately aware that the analogy of universities as creative organisations was imperfect because, despite the best efforts of governments to convince universities that their students are customers, students are not the audience. All students are active learners as are the academics who teach them. Accordingly, all students, especially research students, play a role in the production of the learning outcomes that define the creative output of universities.

Since I was to be followed on the stage by Bertil Andersson, I said that he was an example of a great actor manager with the perspective of one who has played many roles in different venues[1].

Diversity as a key feature of the higher education system

Bertil Andersson and I have things in common but it would not do justice to what we do if I pretended that we are ever in the same or similar productions. Indeed we are not even in different productions of the same work or in different works by the same author. However I would not go as far as saying that he is in tragedy and I am in comedy or vice versa. Nevertheless, it is true that the spectrum of productions across which higher education ranges is, and should be, as diverse as that from opera and ballet through music both classical and popular to musical theatre and beyond to comic and tragic dramas.

We do not do ourselves justice if we deny this diversity. In particular, we do great damage if we allow all our productions to be judged as if they were tragic dramas. That is what we are doing when we give credence to university rankings which evaluate our hugely diverse creative outputs as if they were all designed to be the same set of learning outcomes.

We all know that politicians across many continents are gripped by a belief that the economic future of their countries are crucially dependent upon their having universities engaged in the production of world class research. So that we can stick with the analogy of universities as creative organisations, let us henceforth refer to the productions of research intensive universities as tragic dramas. To do so is to underline the narrowness of this belief on the part of politicians. No one would seriously suggest that the quality of cultural life should be measured as if all culture were tragic drama.

The problem goes further than this, however, because most of those playing leading roles anywhere on the diverse spectrum of higher education were trained in tragic drama. It would be natural for tragic actors who are currently in a provincial theatre to aspire to achieve the standards of and/or better still aspire to appear at the national theatre. But is it rational for opera singers to be not only trained in tragic drama but also to have their excellent operatic performances evaluated as if they were tragic dramas?

This is why I urged my audience, however they saw the productions of research intensive universities, to cast them into their proper place in the serried chorus line of higher education and not to let them hog the limelight and take the curtain calls alone.

Autonomy brings the freedom that universities need

Enhancing the strategic positioning of any organisation is dependent not only upon its knowing where it wants to be but also upon the constraints which the framework within which it has to work place on how and where it can position itself. That is why autonomy is so important because it brings with it the freedom that universities need to be excellent in whatever they choose to produce.

Autonomy brings significant costs and risks as well as benefits. If one defines autonomy as having the freedom to fail then one can see why the benefits of autonomy bring with them the costs of accountability for the management of public funds. Taxpayers are entitled to be assured that public funding is being properly expended in a way that will bring benefits to society. Gathering the data which will provide that assurance is therefore a necessary and acceptable cost both for universities and for their public funding bodies. What is unacceptable is when the data are gathered at disproportionate cost to the funding given and/or the auditing process is based on inappropriate methodologies.

In an age when, increasingly, universities are expected to acquire a significant proportion of their income from student fees, private foundations and business, the detailed accounting to government should be restricted to the publicly funded element. Currently there are university funding systems in which the receipt of any public funding, however small, brings with it the regulatory regime that might be appropriate for an institution entirely reliant on public funding. This is absurd when such institutions face competition from relatively lightly regulated private US universities, some of whom nevertheless get a majority of their income from federal and/or state funding agencies.

What was more costly and damaging was the advent of quality assurance systems which used a methodological approach with fixed assumptions about what constituted best practice in every aspect of a university’s teaching programme. It was as if there was a template by which all teaching should be delivered and against which it could be evaluated. Fortunately some of these systems have been replaced by a more rational approach to quality. Nevertheless there are examples of where some national systems have reinvented the horrors recently rejected by other national systems out of ignorance of the lessons that can be learnt from the bitter experience of others.

The correct approach to quality is to address the extent to which universities produce learning outcomes which are fit for purpose. Evaluations on this basis can be very challenging since they require a proper articulation of purpose and measurable outcomes, many of which are down to the judgment of the university’s stakeholders. In this approach there should be no problems which arise from a lack of a proper appreciation of the diversity of provision across the higher education sector, since the diversity will be obvious from the different purposes for which individual university’s provision is fit. To return to my analogy of universities as creative organisations, there is no possibility of all cultural activity being evaluated as if it is supposed to be opera since it will be clear what the outcome of every cultural activity is supposed to be and the extent to which it is excellent.

The European Commission’s View

All of this is well understood by Janez Potocnik, European Commission of Research, who is quoted in “The future of research universities”, EMBO Reports, Vol. 8, No 9, pp.804-810, as saying: “The important point is that universities have the autonomy to make and implement strategic choices, to which they should be held accountable by the rest of society. In a broad sense, this accountability has always been part of the social contract between universities and society in which they function.” “Universities must be given real autonomy.” “Europe needs universities to build on their strengths and differentiate their activities on the basis of these strengths”. There is also evidence of the acceptance of this view in theEU Commission Communication 'Delivering on the modernisation agenda for universities: education, research and innovation' COM (2006).

LERU’s[2] view was set out in its position paper, Universities and innovation: the challenge for Europe (November 2006). In it was stated that “universities must be given greater autonomy to permit them to act in a more flexible and dynamic fashion; they must be encouraged, through appropriate funding mechanisms, to diversify and play to their strengths so that they are better able to address the diversity of roles required of them; they must be encouraged, by defining strategic priorities and appropriate funding mechanisms, to address major cross-disciplinary issues and to ensure that their structures do not impede such developments; and ensure that their leadership and governance mechanisms are efficient in identifying and pursuing institutional priorities whilst encouraging the academic freedom that is the university’s greatest strength.”

However sound are the views of the EU Commission, the actual granting of greater autonomy to universities is a matter for national and regional governments. All that the Commission can do is draw attention to best practice and exhort the relevant governments to make the changes necessary for these to become universal practices.

Funding autonomy and incentives

A necessary but not sufficient condition for universities to enjoy the benefits of autonomy is a system of transparent core funding from their governments and/or funding agencies. Whether by formulae or other means, these bodies should determine how to allocate the available funds between universities in a way which minimises the burden on universities of having to account for their use of public funds. The allocation should take account of certain factors for each university, including the number and type of students, the subjects taught, and the amount and quality of research undertaken there.

However the amount of the grant is determined, it should be provided in the form of a ‘block grant’ which institutions are free to spend according to their own priorities within broad guidelines. Universities should not expect, or be expected, to model their internal allocations on the funding methodology. There should be as few separate funding streams as possible and the constraints which they impose on institutions should be very general in terms of delivery of overall teaching and research activity. The design of funding systems should take account of the incentives which they give to universities to act in particular ways so as to achieve desirable outcomes and minimise unintended consequences.

Funding for teaching should have regard to:

• making the best possible use of the public money provided so as to enhance the learning experience for students;

• recognising and encouraging diversity in the provision and delivery of higher education and in the range of students;

• responding to the interests of employers and the Government; and,

• promoting quality in teaching and learning.

On the other hand, the main purposes of the funding for research should be:

• to provide for the research infrastructure in universities (including academic staff salaries), and thereby enable universities:

• to compete for basic and strategic research grants from public funding bodies with an ability to meet the full costs of that research using a combination of contributions from university’s block grant and from the overheads paid on the research grant;

• to undertake collaborative research with industry, charities and other users by contributing to infrastructure costs.

• to cover most of the costs of basic research undertaken by universities thereby providing the foundation for strategic and applied work, much of which is supported by other Government funds (from Research Councils and Government departments), and by charities, industrial and commercial organisations and the EU; and,

• to contribute to the substantial fixed costs of postgraduate research education, particularly staff, premises, equipment, libraries and other essential facilities.

It follows from what I have said above that the key features of the funding methodology should be:

• Competition. All universities should be eligible to receive funds if they meet qualifying criteria.

• Diversity. The funding method should encourage institutions to maintain the distinct characteristics of their particular teaching and research missions.

• Quality and selectivity. To make best possible use of public money, funding should be allocated selectively according to publicly assessed, international and national standards of excellence.

Other attributes which funding councils at various times have sought to include are: balance; efficiency; fairness; flexibility; openness; partnership; plurality; predictability; stability and continuity; transparency and workability; and, vision and dynamism.

Other necessary but not sufficient conditions for universities to enjoy the benefits of autonomy are that they should be the employer of their staff with the freedom to determine their terms and conditions and that they should have ownership and control over their financial and real assets.

For European universities to move from their current position to one of greater autonomy will not be an easy task for either governments or universities, as experience in Britain testifies. I feel authorised to draw on British experience[3] by Professor Yves Mény, President of the European University Institute, who, in his 2008 HEPI Annual Lecture entitled Higher Education in Europe: could national systems, European programmes and global issues be reconciled?[4], observed “that Britain has been a place of inspiration and stimulus for the reformers of old and new member of the European Union.”

A Ministerial View from England

The process of changing and questioning the university system is a continuous process as the recent speech[5] of John Denham testifies in which he said “We need to decide what a world-class HE system of the future should be like, what it should seek to achieve, and establish the current barriers to its development.” He recognised that “success depends on government’s respect for universities’ leadership and autonomy” and the freedom to “exercise that autonomy within the framework of aspiration, incentives and support set by government and the funding council” For his part he expressed his “need to understand whether the current funding regime gives the right support to different types of institutions as they pursue a variety of strategies for growth” and whether “the alignment of incentives could mean that radical changes goes against the grain”.

In an age when developments in the Chinese university system have raised the awareness of governments everywhere of the importance of universities[6], it is appropriate that universities are being given the opportunity by their governments to “live in exciting times.” One feature of these times is that John Denham message that “our world leading position – and our ability to sustain institutions that are world class across a range of disciplines – depends on an appropriate concentration of research effort” is increasingly that of other governments as well. That concentration is needed to stimulate, sustain and reward excellence.

Excellence needs to be contested

Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder so, too, excellence has to be judged by consumers rather than producers.

Economists are familiar with Keynes’ model of the beauty contest in which the prize goes to someone who correctly identifies the winner in advance of the judging. Competitors are advised not to back their own judgement of the individual beauty of the contestants but to determine whom they think that the majority of the judges will think is the most beautiful. Keynes used his analogy to argue that the individuals pricing shares in the stock market based their prices not on their own assessment of value but on what they believe to be the average assessment of value of shares. Over time with new information that assessment may change but at any one time the market is the best way of determining the price of a good.

So, too, writers of research grant applications may decide not to say what they think is really worthwhile about their proposed research’s outcomes but instead to describe what they think that the referees and the awarding panel will believe to be really rewarding in the research’s outcomes. Equally, individual academics and their departmental heads in the UK have recently had to determine not which four of their publications over the recent past are world class but which ones will, if submitted, stand the best chance of being judged by the research assessment panel to be world class. Peer review, which this is, is the way of achieving an assessment of value of research. Over time, with new information, the assessment may change[7] but at any one time peer review is the best way of determining the worth of research.

It is the role of the competition authorities to ensure that product markets are not dominated by one or a few producers to the disadvantage of consumers. Equally it is the duty of university and/or research funding agencies to ensure that there are no significant barriers to entry for institutions and/or individuals aspiring to undertake world class teaching and research. It is important therefore that funding systems are as open as possible to new entrants and that existing participants do not have inappropriate advantages.

Parity of Esteem

Most cultural events end with some form of curtain call and most tend to give a special place to the soloists or the leading players. Universities are no exception to this custom with their prizes and scholarships for the best students and their promotions, prizes and international awards for the outstanding teachers and researchers.

Europe needs a widely differentiated and diversified university system with parity of esteem between those achieving excellence in what they choose to do. In my analogy of universities as creative organisations it is easy to see that there can be parity of esteem between excellent opera singers and tragic actors. The problem with universities is that they see themselves as great cultural festivals offering a wide spectrum of different cultural activities, all of which would achieve world class excellence if only they were properly funded. They need to learn from international cultural festivals that there is a limit to the number that can be afforded by sponsors and audiences and that they need to differentiate themselves to attract what sponsorship and audiences there are.

David Livesey, Secretary-General League of European Research Universities (LERU)

Storm brewing in French Universities

The wind started to turn in 2003 when the government froze laboratory grants and suppressed a number of research positions. This initiative triggered big demonstrations on the part of researchers and the creation of a movement called “Sauvons la Recherche” (SLR). This movement was a great success and brought together thousands of people in the universities and research organisations and gained the support of the scientific “establishment”. Faced with this movement the government stepped back and agreed to negotiate with the researchers. However, there was an obvious misunderstanding because beyond the question of funding there was also that of the objectives and organisation of research. The researchers demanded money and posts. The politicians questioned the unwieldiness of the French research system and its inability to contribute efficiently to technological progress.

A nationwide debate, “les Etats Généraux de la Recherche”, was organised at the initiative of the SLR, which culminated in a general meeting in Grenoble in October 2004. The government then led the researchers to believe that they would take into account the observations made at the meeting in the development of a “law on the orientation and programming of research”. The preparation of this law was quite tedious; it was finally passed in April 2006 and only took into account the recommendations of the researchers in a purely formal way. In fact the new law completely transformed the organisation of research, putting into question the role of the existing research organisations and creating new agencies: a research project agency (ANR), subordinated to politics, which would receive considerable funds but would not have its own scientific council, and an assessment agency to evaluate research and teaching in higher education, AERES, intended to cover all research fields, and whose conception was rather bureaucratic.

Up until then, there had been little mention of the universities. The most active members of SLR were researchers not university professors, even if many of the latter were involved in the movement. The characteristics of the French system are well known: it is very centralised, where research has been the domain mainly of research organisations rather than of universities. The CNRS is a general research organisation without equivalent elsewhere in the world. No less than 12,000 full time researchers (having the status of civil servants), 14,000 engineers and administrative staff, are employed by the CNRS, which also co-directs the best laboratories which exist on campus. On the other hand we have under-funded, badly structured universities which emerged painfully in the wake of the great social movements of 1968.

The researchers had not spared the universities. They had criticised their governance, deemed deficient, saying that this disqualified them as true research operators. They called for a reform of the universities but did not consider them as major participants in the organisation of research which should, in their eyes, remain the prerogative of the national research organisations, in particular the CNRS. Present protest activities are still strongly marked by this ideology, whereas the vast majority of university presidents and a great deal of professors clearly disagree with it.

A new model for French Universities?

Up until now France has never had “real” universities (on the Anglo-Saxon model). Since there is no selection at entry, universities deal with the vast mass of students whereas a hyper-selective system, inherited from the 19th Century, the “Grandes Ecoles”, creams off the best students. Paradoxically, there is less research done in the “Grandes Ecoles” than in the universities, and students are not encouraged to take up scientific careers. This odd situation leads to a lack of visibility on the international level in the context of globalisation. The “Grandes Ecoles” are invisible “pin-points” at the world level, and the Shanghai academic ranking is a source of humiliation for French universities. The bias of this ranking is well known, but nevertheless it reveals a national situation which is far from glorious.

The scientific and technological superiority of the United States has its roots in its universities, while the organisation of science in France is still “Napoleonic”. It is bureaucratic, cumbersome and engenders a lack of responsibility. There’s no point denying this, and if a lot of scientists hang on to the status quo, it is because they are afraid of losing their autonomy and being governed by politics, in the name of short-term economic efficiency. This may seem paradoxical at a moment when there is talk of making universities more autonomous, but some see in this autonomy a greater vulnerability to economic factors and market forces, the disappearance of national procedures of scientific evaluation (“peer review”) and the beginning of a ferocious competition between establishments at the expense of their mission as a public service[1].

The government in office is clearly determined “to put the university at the centre of our research programme”, the research organisations becoming “funding agencies rather than operators”. The government also wishes “to give French universities the autonomy which is the general rule in all the great scientific countries in the world”.[2] It is this orientation which inspires the “law relative to the freedom and responsibilities of the universities” (LRU, July 2007). This law gives the university a new form of governance which reinforces the powers of university presidents and grants them wider operational responsibilities in matters concerning their budget and staff.[3] The idea would appear to be to bring French universities in line with an international model. We shall see if the LRU is clear in its principles: its practical solutions, though, are calamitous and make the application of its principles problematic.

Two decades of evolution in French Universities

During the last twenty years the research scene in the universities has changed considerably. In the beginning, the universities were not programmed to be research operators.

The university component has gained importance for several reasons. First of all demographic: since 1986 the number of professors has doubled. In addition 90% of the CNRS laboratories have become joint ventures with universities, operating on university campuses and employing the majority of professors. Second, in the establishment of the postgraduate schools, the universities have positioned themselves as training centres for some 10,000 French PhD students a year. Finally, the “contract policy”[4] has acted as a transition from a totally state-governed situation to one of future autonomy.

Today we are entering a period of reorganisation (indeed complete restructuring) of our higher education and research system which will take several years. This reform is not the result of a wide debate and consensus, but a series of incomplete answers, not always coherent, to problems that the scientific community itself does not agree on. The situation is unstable and fraught with conflict and the different protagonists take refuge in defensive strategies.

The question of university governance arises in every country. The university today is expected to be ready and able to adopt a strategy and to react quickly towards its partners. A tension is thus created between the “collegiate” tradition and the introduction of a more managerial philosophy. It isn’t surprising that the university elections, which are underway at the moment to elect both the administrative council and the president, are taking place in a tense climate.

The difficulties of Applying the Law

Until now French universities existed under a kind of parliamentary regime with councils composed of numerous and varied groupings of interest, incapable of affirming a policy other than the maintaining of the status quo. The presidents had to rely on their personal charisma and their leadership ability to exert control. In Anglo-Saxon universities, the executive council (university council, board of trustees, regents…) is composed of a majority of lay members. But French universities will keep their current policy of having a majority of elected members; moreover, the lay members cannot take part in the election of the president.

The LRU hoped to remedy the malfunctioning of university governance by putting in place a restricted administrative council (20 to 30 members) where professors would constitute around two thirds of the elected members[5] (only elected members can vote for the president). The electoral system consists of a vote by list and by category, which gives the absolute majority of seats to the list obtaining most votes. The flaws of this system have been revealed by “politicising” to the extreme the election of the representatives of the professors. This is further exacerbated by the division of professors into two colleges (full professors and assistant professors) which has a little air of “class struggle” about it. The candidates to the presidency head a list on the administrative council, which contributes to introducing into the university a kind of presidential regime which strongly resembles our political regime! The result is a confusion of powers between the administrative council, the presidential administration and the academic committees.

With a system like this, French universities will have great difficulty in successfully moving towards autonomy in the climate of anxiety engendered by many hasty reforms of the research system. However we are only at the beginning of the process... But we have entered a zone of turbulence and we’ll have to fasten our seat belts...

Jean-François Méla, Mathematics, Institut Galilée, University Paris 13 (France)

ESOF2008 Interviews of 3 Highlight speakers!

Eva Bayer-Fluckiger

Professor of mathematics, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL),
Lausanne, Switzerland

Which are the issues that you think are of critical importance to European research at the moment?

The future of European research depends critically on the funding the scientists can obtain. It seems to me that in several European countries it is very difficult to get funding for fundamental research. I think that this is a very important issue : it would be a mistake to reduce the funding available for research in general, and also to insist that all research should be immediately applicable. Important research always finds its applications, but it may only happen in a long range.

Another basic issue is the insufficient number of women among the scientists. Even though many girls study science, they are often discouraged to continue. This way, we lose many talents for European science.

As a mathematician, I also think that the measure of the importance of research by indicators such as the number of papers published, quotation index etc. are very inappropriate and even dangerous. They may be efficient tools in other topics, but this is not the case in mathematics.

Can you tell us something about your keynote speech?

My keynote speech will address issues of communication. I think that the need to communicate is a very basic one. It raises many problems that can be treated with scientific methods. In particular, number theory can be applied very effectively.

What is the value of an open forum like ESOF in these days of the Internet when everyone can communicate with one another instantaneously anyway?

An open forum like ESOF makes it possible for scientists to meet each other - direct communication has something to offer that the Internet cannot!

Why is it important for young scientists and students to attend an event like ESOF2008? What message do you have for young researchers and students in Europe in this year of ESOF2008?

For young scientists, it is important to have a general view of their disciplines, and of science in general. Beginners often concentrate on their research topic only - this is natural, in order to get one’s first results one needs to be very concentrated. However, to open up to other perspectives is also important. In an event like ESOF2008, young scientists have the opportunity to attend lectures that give them a general perspective. Moreover, it is an opportunity to meet both young and confirmed scientists.

Here is a message for the students: being a scientist is a wonderful profession! Follow your aspirations and your ideas, don't be afraid to be yourself.

How important is it for scientists and journalists to meet and discuss scientific issues in Europe/science policies? Is ESOF a good conduit for this?

I think that it is very important that science is presented very accurately to the public at large. Therefore, meetings between scientists and journalists are certainly important, and this can take place at the ESOF.

What would you hope events like ESOF can do to inform the general public about research in Europe?

Perhaps offer a meeting place for scientists, journalists, politicians - this will eventually lead to better information for the general public.

What are your hopes for the next steps in Europe with respect to research and innovation?

Better scientific education in schools, better funding for research, including fundamental research, and better information for the general public. Another important step will be to increase the number of women scientists.

Marcus du Sautoy

Professor of Mathematics, University of Oxford, United Kingdom

Which are the issues that you think are of critical importance to European research at the moment?

Issues of science and technology affect everybody's lives, from climate change to genetically modified crops, from computer security to stem cell research. Unless we have a scientifically literate society we are not going to be in a position to engage with the new scientific advances that will face society in the next decades. For me therefore it is essential that those involved in research find ways to create meaningful dialogues with all levels of society from politicians to the person on the street. Events like the ESOF provide a great platform for stimulating such dialogue.

Can you tell us something about your keynote speech? What main issues will you be addressing? Why are these important for the research community in Europe? Do they also have relevance for the people of Europe as a whole?

Mathematics is the language of science. It provides fantastic tools to be able to understand and predict the behaviour of the world around us. So I am hoping that my keynote speech will illustrate the power of mathematics to address many of the key problems of science. For artists too, mathematics underpins many steps in the creative process.
From the tiles in the Alhambra to Bach’s Goldberg Variations, there are mathematical structures hiding behind these great works of art. My presentation will explore the power of this mathematical language to help navigate the world around us and to take us into new worlds we could hardly hope to conceive of.

What is the value of an open forum like ESOF in these days of the Internet when everyone can communicate with one another instantaneously anyway?

Nothing beats meeting a real life scientist. I do a lot of work on TV and on radio which reaches millions of viewers and listeners. But I know that it is the visits I make to schools where I meet kids face to face, where they get to see a mathematician live and kicking, when the biggest impact can be made. The internet and the broadcast media still have a part to play in maximizing the delivery of the message. Also, when creating dialogue, such open forums are much more suited to generating an environment where you can have a genuine two-way interaction.

Why is it important for young scientists and students to attend an event like ESOF2008? What message do you have for young researchers and students in Europe in this year of ESOF2008?

It is important for young scientists to realise that science is not just about making great discoveries but it is also about communicating ideas, sharing breakthroughs that might lead on to greater discoveries. Such events allow scientists from different disciplines to interact and maybe make progress on problems thanks to insights from other disciplines.

How important is it for scientists and journalists to meet and discuss scientific issues in Europe/science policies? Is ESOF a good conduit for this?

Journalists and scientists think and talk in very different ways. But journalists play a crucial role in engaging society with the major breakthroughs in science. So events like the ESOF are essential in creating bridges between the two professions.

What would you hope events like ESOF can do to inform the general public about research in Europe?

Science is a subject which transcends national boundaries. The ESOF provides a great platform to showcase some of the great scientific
research that it is being done in collaborations across Europe and worldwide.

What are your hopes for the next steps in Europe with respect to research and innovation?

The next step is to see more dialogue between different scientific disciplines. Too often, scientists in one department are not aware of
the research and breakthroughs being made in labs in other departments. For example, mathematics is a fantastic language and mathematicians have made significant breakthroughs in fundamental structures which are key to many other sciences. More communication between biology, medicine, environmental science and mathematics could lead to major new breakthroughs.

Dr. Richard J. Roberts

Chief Scientific Officer, New England Biolabs, United States

Which are the issues that you think are of critical importance to European research at the moment?

First, how to fund young people who are at the very earliest stages of their careers. Second, how to ensure that the scientific literature is freely available to everyone.

Can you tell us something about your keynote speech? What main issues will you be addressing? Why are these important for the research community in Europe? Do they also have relevance for the people of Europe as a whole?

The talk will cover my personal career and the various initiatives that I have promoted over the years. These include the establishment of GenBank and the notion that DNA sequences, and data in general, should be freely available to everyone. More recently, I have been involved in the Open Access movement both as an activist from the reader's perspective and as a journal editor. I was also involved in the early days of Biotech through my work on restriction enzymes and I participated in the Asilomar conference. This was my first encounter with the importance of scientists getting involved in public policy. Finally, I will talk briefly about my involvement in the case of the Bulgarian nurses accused of spreading the HIV virus in the Children's Hospital in Benghazi, Libya. All of these issues affect the general public whether in Europe, the US or anywhere else in the world.

What is the value of an open forum like ESOF in these days of the Internet when everyone can communicate with one another instantaneously anyway?

Personal interactions that occur during meetings of this sort cannot be replaced by "internet events".

Why is it important for young scientists and students to attend an event like ESOF2008? What message do you have for young researchers and students in Europe in this year of ESOF2008?

I think that students can always be inspired by listening to successful older people. However, I do feel it is important that they don't always take too seriously what is said. It is good to be sceptical! In the case of my talk I will be encouraging the students to rebel against so-called authority figures.

How important is it for scientists and journalists to meet and discuss scientific issues in Europe/science policies? Is ESOF a good conduit for this?

Conversations between scientists and journalists can be a very good thing, though I don't know enough about ESOF to know how good a conduit it provides.

What would you hope events like ESOF can do to inform the general public about research in Europe?

Hopefully, this will convince the participants that they should support open access publication of their research findings.

What are your hopes for the next steps in Europe with respect to research and innovation?

More money for young scientists who are likely to make some breakthoughs. I would not be unhappy if this were at the expense of older scientists who might then lose some of their funding. The future of scientific discovery depends on the young and their rebellion against traditional dogma.