"Bare Glow" (short for Basic Research in a Global World) shall focus on the multipronged interplay of research, politics and society at the global level.
Basic Research in many field including physics, chemistry and life science is nowadays universal. Scientific priorities are the same in Europe, US or Asia. Scientists are tackling the same problems, using the same technologies, going to the same conferences, working in the same large international teams... but is basic research as for now a truly global endeavor ?
Not quite! the lack of a global approach to funding, to management, to political and societal communication has led to serious difficulties, misunderstandings and even misconceptions specially when it comes to developing large world-wide projects. The bumpy road to the final ITER decision and the recent unilateral and abrupt US/UK cuts are quite instructive in this respect. They reveal the poor level of dialog between decision makers and scientists, the lack of open and transparent international forums involving both scientists and policy makers, the poor involvement of the society due to a lack of communication ...
Scientists and decisions makers should revise the organization and coordination of research at the international level.
This is an ambitious project to which, I hope, this blog will bring its modest contribution by simply gathering related informations and by prompting opinions from the research community but also from experts in the political, social, diplomatic and international law affairs.
Basic Research in many field including physics, chemistry and life science is nowadays universal. Scientific priorities are the same in Europe, US or Asia. Scientists are tackling the same problems, using the same technologies, going to the same conferences, working in the same large international teams... but is basic research as for now a truly global endeavor ?
Not quite! the lack of a global approach to funding, to management, to political and societal communication has led to serious difficulties, misunderstandings and even misconceptions specially when it comes to developing large world-wide projects. The bumpy road to the final ITER decision and the recent unilateral and abrupt US/UK cuts are quite instructive in this respect. They reveal the poor level of dialog between decision makers and scientists, the lack of open and transparent international forums involving both scientists and policy makers, the poor involvement of the society due to a lack of communication ...
Scientists and decisions makers should revise the organization and coordination of research at the international level.
This is an ambitious project to which, I hope, this blog will bring its modest contribution by simply gathering related informations and by prompting opinions from the research community but also from experts in the political, social, diplomatic and international law affairs.
