Uniting people, fighting obscurantism

Hands

The defence of basic human rights has gathered, in response to an horrendous terrorism act, millions of people in French streets and in the world in an unprecedented unison. It was both moving and reassuring to see when big causes are at stake people get united.
Altruistic endeavours, although to a lesser extent, can also unit people and bring them together, all involved in a common enterprise regardless of their country, race, religion or culture. Such ventures aren't so many: humanitarian aids, fighting hunger and poverty, providing universal education and, probably, expanding knowledge.

Knowledge of the most fundamental mechanisms related to life, to the environment and to the universe is certainly the most important asset of humanity. It is a common heritage that has been accumulated since the dusk of civilization, a growing treasure passed from generation to generation. Pure knowledge is the seed of disruptive civilization changes often for the better and sometime for the worst. It all relies on people i.e. political decisions. But pure knowledge is a marker of humanity evolution.

Human beings are social animals and research is a social endeavour. Planned future fundamental research projects definitely adopt and develop this social and encompassing dimension pushing it from the regional to the world level. They must get people from all horizons united behind the same goal.  It is much more than technology or complex mathematics, it is creative thinking in a multicultural society.

Without distorting the original message given by these demonstrations, let's hope that more value will be put on culture and science to help fighting hatred, xenophobia and obscurantism.

and Pencils.

ILC in Japan: launch window open ... but time is running..

The ILC (International Linear Collider) project seems to be on its way to the launch pad.

After the showing up of a Higgs-like boson at CERN LHC Jul. 4th, the completion Dec. 15th of the TDRs (technical studies), the Japanese community proposal to host the machine in a first ever and true world-wide laboratory and the ruling party change in Japan Dec. 16th, all lights are green.

However, the final liftoff may never happen, if the international HEP community does not act pro-actively and coherently to back up this major fundamental research endeavor.
It is the responsibility of each of us supporting the ILC scientific case with the international committees and funding agencies to come up with a sound and balanced project and partnership.
A window of opportunity is now open, that may not last long, ... no time to waste, let's not replay the TESLA or, more recently, the SuperB  unfortunate scenario.

The CERN LHC has discovered a new Higgs-like boson and, so has set the energy scale for a e+e- precision machine, very much like the discovery of the Z and W at SPS collider led to the two energy phases of LEP.
The proton-proton physics is complex in part due to the compositeness of the proton and the recent uncertainty on the mass is an illustration of these difficulties.
Probably the most important way to identify "new Physics" beyond the Standard Model is the precise measurement of the Higgs couplings which will not reach, at LHC, the minimum 5%  required. In fact, 1-3% precision is needed to actually study or push further the limits of the new physics domain, only accessible to the ILC. LHC may unveil new resonances that again would set further goals for a precision machine. LHC and ILC are therefore complementary in the quest for new physics. As a first stage, ILC could very well start at the Higgs production energy, namely around 250 GeV and one could benefit from having both colliders operational at the same time.

The Japan scientific community, as a whole, pleads for the construction of the ILC in Japan. A group of industry leaders (AAA) together with scientists has been formed years ago to support the project and to work on its implementation. A bi-partisan federation of Diet members led by a formed prime minister from LDP has taken a strong position to support the project. The Japan Policy Council, a government independent but influential  think-tank, has recommended to build the ILC in the hope to open the regions to international cooperation and to build global cities.

Technically the project is ripe. On Saturday December 15th, in Tokyo, the GDE officially did present their conclusions in the form of technical proposals (for the accelerator and the detectors) to the head of the ILCSC. "Only" the costing was not included, in part because of its dependence on the site location. Two sites are proposed in Japan. The selection will be done soon and, it is expected that both sites will, in some way, benefit from the project.

With the new election last Sunday putting back in power the LDP after a 3 years ruling of the DPJ, the odds for an endorsement of the ILC in Japan by the government has been raised to a new level.

However, in high-energy physics, we have already experienced false hopes, Isabelle and SSC in the US, TESLA in Germany more than 10 years ago and very recently the cancellation of SuperB in Italy at least, as it was designed. Most of these failures can be traced back, in part, to a too weak commitment of non-host potential contributing countries. For example the Italian government was ready to invest 250 ME in the SuperB project, but the financial complement supposed to come from an international partnership to the total cost of 1 BE was not secured.

The Japanese proposal would be to shoulder 50% of the 500 GeV project budget with a 250 GeV first stage being ~ 30% cheaper.With the current LHC program and its upgrades and extensions on top of a serious financial crisis, the ends will not easily meet in Europe. Other Asian and American countries have similar and also specific constraints and issues which will impact the whole project. This is why the international research community involvement is most important, in particular, to steer the project to foreign partners acceptable and affordable waters and to demonstrate that knowledge research cooperation should prevail over other issues for a better future (see also in Nature).
The international ILC community is building up, see here or here in addition to the many contributors to the R&D and design phases. All efforts should be made to attract to the field more researchers, to strengthen, in each country, the policy and decision makers ILC awareness and to organize an international platform involving scientists, political and industry leaders to progress toward a global acceptance. 

Beyond fundamental research, the ILC in Japan, possibly in a new global city, is a multidimensional project that will draw international cooperation to new heights, much beyond today practice. It will address social, cultural, political, environmental, energy or governance issues.

Fukushima: Scientists and Society

A revised version of a "Sciences et Avenir" column (in French)

"A new Science order: Science for the people"  

GE Fukushima reac

Nuclear energy, oil supply, shale gas extraction, climate change, nanotechnology, cell phone radiation, drug safety, GMOs, food poisoning and even financial products, are some of the subjects, highly topical and of strong technical imprint, that have invaded our daily concerns. They disrupt the whole economy and transform in depth the society. But what control over these new technologies can the society exercise? Which means and opposition forces may the society put in action? Faut-il imaginer une nouvelle organisation de nos démocraties pour valoriser l'avance des connaissances en respectant les citoyens et en sauvegardant le futur de l'humanité? Should a new organization of our democracies be designed to promote the new discovery applications yet preserving citizen freedom and expectations and safeguarding the future of humanity?Quel doit être le rôle des scientifiques, entre savoir et pouvoir, science et conscience, profit et pr What should be the role of scientists in this framework, between knowledge and power, science and conscience, profit and progress? 
The Fukushima Dai-Ichi tragedy should encourage this realization so that scientists, politicians, industry leaders and citizens engage in a sincere discussion and design the prospects for a safer, healthier and more serene world.

La tragédie de Fukushima, au delà du souci immédiat d'éviter le pire et de protéger les travailleurs et la population du danger effroyable d'un deuxième Hiroshima-Nagasaki [1] , ne doit pas rester sans suite. The Fukushima tragedy, beyond immediate concerns to avoid the worst and protect nuclear-power workers and the people of the terrible danger of a second Hiroshima-Nagasaki [1], must not remain unanswered. Everybody agrees and topics to address are numerous: need for nuclear energy, reliability of the technologies, hazardous industry governance, prevention and crisis management, etc. Cependant, dépassant largement le nucléaire, il faut aborder le sujet central à l'ensemble de ces questionnements, celui du rôle de la science et des scientifiques dans la société et des contrôles et protections qui doivent être mis en plaHowever, far beyond the nuclear energy issue itself, one needs to address a central theme common to all new technologies reaching the society, namely: what is the role of science and of scientists in society and what are the checks and safeguards that must be implemented together with the implementation of new technologies or new processes.

De nombreuses voix de scientifiques s'étaient élevées contre les risques nucléaires dans un pays qui recense 40% des tremblements de terre du monde. Many scientists had raised serious concerns about the nuclear danger in a country that registers 40% of the world earthquakes. Elles n'ont pas été écThey were not listened to.Dans une région qui avait connu en 1896 un tsunami de 38,2 mètres, était-il raisonnable, était-il « scientifiquement correct », de construire la centrale de Fukushima Daiichi au bord de l'océan? In a region that had experienced in 1896 a tsunami  with waves up to 38.2 meters, was it reasonable, was it "scientifically sensible" to build a power plant on the oceanfront? N'était-il pas criminel de « soudoyer » et de tromper la population locale pour faire accepter, à sa porte, des réacteurs simplement protégés par des digues de 5,7Was it not criminal to "bribe" and deceive local people to accept, on their doorstep, nuclear reactors only protected by 5.7 m dikes? Qui prit ces décisions ? Who took these decisions? obviously the decision makers:Ceux dont c'est le rôle, le gouvernement et les industriels, certainement pas les scientifiques. the government, the industry ?, certainly not scientists. Because simply they were not really involved.

'Tremblement de terre nucléaire" Nuclear Earthquake

En 2006, la sécurité des centrales avait été réévaluée par une commission nommée par le gouvernement. In 2006, the nuclear plant safety had been reviewed by a commission appointed by the government. Devant l'augmentation des risques sismiques depuis leur construction, un de ses membres, Katsuhiko Ishibashi, professeur à l'Université de Kobe, avait demandé des mesures complémentaires pour donner un avis circonstancié. Given the increased seismic risk since the reactor construction, one of its members, Katsuhiko Ishibashi, a professor at Kobe University, had asked for additional  studies to give a serious and detailed opinion. Sa demande ayant été refusée, sa seule arme fut de démissionner de cette commission qu'il qualifia de « manipulée et non scientifique » et rien ne vint s'opposer à la volonté du gouvernement et des opérateurs de poursuivre sans modification l'exploitation des centrales. His request was denied, the only way to express himself was to resign from a commission he described as "manipulated and unscientific" and nothing came to oppose the will of the decision makers to continue, without modification, the plant operations. Il avait pourtant décrit avec précision l'enchaînement fatal qui fut observé: tremblement de terre, tsunami, accident nucléaire et avait même inventé le terme de « tremblement de terre nucléaire » (genpatsu-shinsai) pour cet effet domino. Yet he had accurately described the fatal sequence which was observed a few years later, on 11th March  2011: a big earthquake followed by a tsunami triggering then a nuclear accident. He had even coined the term "nuclear earthquake” (Genpatsu-Shinsai) for this domino effect.

Le scientifique a dit la vérité … "The scientist told the truth, he should be executed…" [2] Ce cas n'est pas unique, dans beaucoup de domaines et singulièrement dans ceux liés aux avancées scientifiques, il ya eu des lanceurs d'alerte («whistleblower », souffleur de sifflet, disent littéralement les anglo-saxons).

This case is not unique. In many areas and particularly in those related to scientific advances, there have been whistle blowers. Mais, que peut un seul expert quand d'énormes intérêts sont en jeu? But what can one expert do when huge interests are at stake? Les puissants lobbies partisans, religieux ou industriels auront tôt fait de rendre inaudible ce gêneur. The powerful activist, religious or industrial lobbies will quickly make this intruder voice-less. Ils en ont les moyens.They can afford it. Discrédité, son avenir professionnel sera compromis, ses moyens réduits et il ne pourra plus porter la contradiction.Discredited, his professional future will be compromised, his support will be drastically reduced and, therefore, he will no longer be able to bear the contradiction.

S'il « survit », si un comité de scientifiques se forme, si des pétitions sont signées, alors un groupe contradictoire de pseudo-experts sera créé. If he "survives", if a committee of scientists is formed, if petitions are signed, then an adversarial group of pseudo-experts will be created. Fortement financé, il jettera le doute dans l'esprit du public libérant ainsi les politiques des contraintes que la science imposait. Heavily financed, it will cast doubt [3] in the public awareness freeing the politics and decision makers of the constraints that science imposes. Certains media joueront le jeu biaisé de la soi-disant polémique en organisant un débat entre deux représentants de chaque « camp », accréditant ainsi d'avantage l'idée que « les scientifiques sont partagés sur le sujet ». Some media will play the biased game of artificial controversy by hosting debates between an equal number of representatives of each side, further supporting the idea that "scientists are divided on the subject". Ils s'appuieront sur des figures médiatiques qui n'ont de scientifique que leur titre acquis dans leur prime jeunesse, mais certainement ni les connaissances, ni les méthodes, ni la rigueur. They will rely on science media figures, not necessarily expert on the specific issue, but who nevertheless express themselves without neither the scientific methods nor the rigor they should have exercised. C'est ce schéma que l'on a vu se développer dans le combat entre darwinisme et créationnisme, autour du réchauffement global, sur les OGM, la téléphonie mobile, … It is this very pattern that we saw being developed in the battle between Darwinism and creationism, about global warming, GMO safety or mobile phones radiations, ...

Mais après tout, pourquoi s'alarmer, disent certains ? But after all, why be alarmed, some says? L'humanité n'at-elle pas évolué, de la préhistoire à l'ère numérique, comme un bolide fou entre indéniables progrès et nouveaux moyens de destructions, constatent-ils. Has’nt Mankind evolved from prehistoric times to the digital age, like a meteor between undeniable progresses and new means of destruction.Finalement, selon eux, tout n'est pas si terrible, l'humanité ne s'en est pas trop mal tirée … des Tchernobyls, des Fukushimas, il y en a eu et il y en aura d'autres, c'est encore supportable. Finally, they say, all is not so horrendous, humanity did not do too badly ... like Chernobyls or Fukushimas, there have been and there will be others, it is still bearable. C'est dommage pour les populations, mais voyez-vous ! It's a problem for people living there, but you see, il n'ya pas d'alternative, sans énergie pas de croissance, sans croissance point de salut. there is no alternative, no growth without energy, without growth, no salvation!

C'est cynique, injurieux même pour les victimes, mais c'est l'état d'esprit de certains, si l'on en juge par les déclarations de représentants de l'IAEA [2] , organisme sensé contrôler l'utilisation pacifique du nucléaire. It is cynical, even insulting to the victims, but this is the mindset of some, at least if we judge by the statements of representatives of the IAEA [4] , an organization supposed to control the peaceful use nuclear technology.

Ou bien sommes-nous arrivés à un point de rupture , une singularité disent les scientifiques, un point de non retour, un point où la puissance de l'homme et de son savoir peut détruire la planète, un point ou les risques mal maitrisés dépassent largement les bénéfices attendus? Or, have we come to a breaking point, scientists say a singularity, a point of no return, a point where the power of man and his knowledge can destroy the planet, a point where poorly controlled risks largely exceed the expected benefits?

En fait, ce point nous l'avons déjà dépassé depuis que l'armement nucléaire existe. In fact, this stage we have already passed since the nuclear armament exists. Car avec la dissuasion nucléaire, il s'agissait bien de promettre l'apocalypse à toute velléité de domination, la destruction de la planète comme règlement des conflits. As with nuclear deterrence, Apocalypse is promised to any attempts of domination, the destruction of the planet as a recipe for conflict resolution. L'humanité est passée près, très près de sa disparition, une simple erreur humaine, une provocation, un manque de sang-froid d'un de nos dirigeants et le pas pouvait être franchi. Humanity has come close, very close to its disappearance, a simple human error, a provocation, a lack of composure of one of our leaders and the step could have been crossed.

Alors que faut-il faire ? Knowledge is power to choose

Arrêter la recherche, disent d'autres ! Stop research! say others. Finalement, ne serait-ce pas là la solution puisqu'elle peut nous embarquer vers d'autres périls, encore plus grands que ceux que l'on connaît ? Finally would this not be the solution, since research can embark us to other and unforeseen dangers, even greater than what we know? Il faudrait nous contenter d'améliorer ce que l'on connaît et corriger les « petits » défauts de nos technologies, soutiennent-ils. We should just improve what we have today! and correct the "small" defects of our technologies, they argue. C'est ce qu'on aurait pu être tenté de faire, il ya un siècle, en continuant à développer la chandelle alors qu'on découvrait l'électron et l'électricité. This is what we might have been tempted to do a century ago, namely continuing to develop the candle technology when J.J. Thomson and others were discovering the electron and electricity. Si par faiblesse on s'engageait dans cette voie, un nouveau siècle d'obscurantisme s'ouvrirait, un retour en arrière fatal serait amorcé qui ne ferait que rendre la situation actuelle encore plus difficile à relever. If society had this weakness, a new century of darkness would open, a fatal step backwards would be initiated which would make the current situation definitively even more difficult to overcome.C'est en fait de plus de recherche dont on a besoin, d'une meilleure connaissance des risques et des possibles implications. What we need actually is not less but more research. We need a better understanding of the risks and of all possible consequences. We need finding new solutions to old problems or alternative technologies. Savoir c'est pouvoir choisir. Knowledge is power to choose.

Alors, que faire ?So what? Comment éviter ce retour en arrière et son cortège de croyances obscurantistes et l'explosion incontrôlée d'un savoir dévoyé ? How to avoid going backwards with its procession of obscurantist beliefs but still staying away from the uncontrolled explosion of misguided new knowledge applications? Comment bannir les applications néfastes et promouvoir celles qui font progresser l'humanité vers plus de sécurité, plus d'égalité, plus de confort pour tous ? How to banish harmful applications and promote those leading humanity toward greater security, more equality and more comfort for all? C'est une question récurrente, mais nous, scientifiques, seuls n'avons pas la réponse; elle réside d'abord dans une prise de conscience de la société dans son ensemble , une société qui actuellement confine le scientifique dans une tour d'ivoire et ne voit en lui, au mieux, qu'un découvreur de possibles, qu'un accumulateur de connaissances, qu'un « agitateur d'idées ». This is a recurring question since ages which has never been solved properly, because we scientists, alone, have not the answer. It lies primarily in raising the awareness of society as a whole, a society that currently confines the scientist in its ivory tower and sees him, at best, as a discoverer of possibles, as an accumulator of knowledge or as an intellectual agitator.

Si la société au cours de son histoire a évolué vers plus de démocratie, plus d'implication du peuple dans les grands choix politiques, elle ne s'est pas dotée de véritables instruments d'évaluation, de contrôle et d'information adaptés à l'évolution des connaissances. If the society during its recent history has moved towards greater democracy, greater people involvement in the major policy choices, it did not adopt adequate instruments of assessment, of control and of nformation dissemination tailored to the rapid evolution of knowledge. Entre la recherche et ses applications, entre les stratégies politico-industrielles, nationales ou supranationales et les besoins réels de la société, en un mot, entre la science et la société, un chaînon est resté manquant, celui d'un jugement scientifique des risques et des bénéfices des nouvelles technologies et d'un contrôle permanent de leur mise en œuvre. Between research and application, between political and industrial strategies (national or supranational) and the real needs of the society, in short, between science and society, remains a missing link: the evaluation of the new technologies risk/benefit values and the constant monitoring of their implementation. Pire, la nature ayant horreur du vide, la place a été prise par des comités ad-hoc, des agences complices et par certains scientifiques, notamment ceux dont une grande part des financements provient du privé. Worse, since nature abhors vacuum, the room has been filled by ad hoc committees/councils, complicit agencies and scientific gurus, particularly those with a large share of funding coming from private sources.

Pour un nouvel ordre de la science dans la société For a new order of science in society

Mais dans leur grande majorité les scientifiques en France et ailleurs sont d'abord des citoyens et nos institutions publiques ont su, malgré les difficultés, préserver l'indépendance essentielle à toute recherche de qualité. But the vast majority of scientists are, before all, citizens and our public institutions have managed, despite difficulties, to preserve the independence essential to any high quality research.

Dans ce cadre, je ne doute pas que cette prise de conscience que l'on ne peut pas décréter, se cristallise et que des initiatives soient prises avec les scientifiques, les politiques, les médias et les citoyens, en France et au niveau international, pour qu'un dialogue s'installe et que l'on parvienne à proposer une nouvelle organisation de la société qui permette à la fois de mener une recherche performante et libératrice, de développer une opinion publique éclairée par une éducation et une information adaptée et d'inscrire la réalité scientifique dans l'ensemble des projets sociétaux pour que les échecs de la modernité ne se banalisent pas. In this context, I have no doubt that this global awareness that can not be decreed, will crystallize and that initiatives will be taken by scientists, politicians, media and education leaders and citizens at the local and international level to settle for a dialogue and to strive to propose a new science aware organization of the society. Its charter would be to conduct an enabling and liberating knowledge-driven research, to develop an informed public opinion through education and tailored information, to put in place risk preventive actions and to register scientific reality in all societal projects for the failures of modernity not to become commonplace.

A revised version of a "Sciences et Avenir" column (in French)

Denis Per--------------------------

[1] Les deux événements ne sont pas comparables sur de nombreux aspects. [1] The two events are not comparable in many aspects. Simply in terms of released radioactive materials, the Fukushima accident reached ~ 20-40% of the Chernobyl explosion itself valued at 200 times the amount of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined polution (WHO). Pour l'instant, les éjections de Fukushima représentent donc environ 20 fois celle de HN. For now, Fukushima material releases represent at least 40 times that of HN (see New York Times).

[2] « Même s'il y avait un accident de ce type tous les ans, je considérerais le nucléaire comme une source d'énergie intéressante », déclara ainsi Morris Rosen, directeur de la sureté nucléaire de l'AIEA (Le Monde du 28 août 1986). [2] Adaptation (pastiche) of “La verite" (The truth) by G. Beart, French singer

[3] See the techniques to spread ignorance described in the “Merchand of doubts” by Naomi Oreskes and related discussion about "agnotology": science of ignorance.

[4] "Even if there were an accident of this type every year, I would still consider nuclear power as a valuable source of energy," said Morris Rosen, director of the IAEA Nuclear Safety (Le Monde August 28, 1986). 

UK Scientists in Parliament fog

Claude Monet from the series "houses of Parliament".

Education of the Members of the Parliaments.
Following the recent election, the United Kingdom parliament is undergoing a major representative replacement with the coming to power of a conservative/liberal democrat coalition.
How much knowledge these new comers have on research and technology related issues is a legitimate concerns to the UK scientists. The way science will be assessed and supported in the coming years is at stake.
This made the headline of a recent Nature editorial Vol 465, 135: Scientists' turn to win votes

"This parliament will be filled with fresh faces, and it now falls on the scientific community to begin the important and urgent work of educating these new Members of Parliament (MPs) on scientific issues."

This comment goes beyond UK research, researchers and politics. All scientists in the world are facing similar concerns and it is part of the scientific and political communities duty to engage in a thorough dialog.
Communication channels have been created along the years, but today more and better is needed. The high impact science has on people life, especially when related to health, environmental or energy issues, the fast-paced scientific progress and the increasing complexity of scientific matters call for new communication tools and new discussion platforms.

Educate the scientists, too.

But more importantly, the dialog should be bi-directional, if I dare the pleonasm. Scientists must also be educated by policy makers. Although as citizen, scientists have a fair knowledge of the political and societal situation, they need to get more insight and global views on many issues like the genuine societal needs and expectations, the people knowledge on and reactions to scientific issues, the economic and financial implications, the legal and administrative issues and barriers, the national policy and strategies, the international framework, ...

Existing communication channels

Most of the Parliaments in Europe have an office or a bureau in charge of informing the parliament about science and technology. For example, in the UK, the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) or in France the "Office Parlementaire d´Evaluation des Choix Scientifiques et Technologiques" (OPECST (eng)) fulfill this role. They are actually regrouped at the European level on EPTA, the European Parliamentary Technology Assessment.

Science Academies have also a similar mission. The Royal Society (UK Science Academy) sees also its role as "Influencing Policy".

"The Royal Society has a long track record of providing scientific advice to policy makers. Its earliest report, on the state of Britain’s forests, was published in 1664."

The press, the communicators, the NGO or the associations are also sources of information and requests for actions.

All these channels are important and should be strengthened by more researchers' involvement.
But they only partially deliver the precise, open and unbiased information the scientific community owes our representatives and more is needed.

Possible lines of actions:

• Improving MPs general scientific culture, independently of the parliament specific agenda. As reported in the Nature editorial only 10% UK MPs have scientific background. Introductory talks on the way research gets done, on basic reasoning logic, on uncertainty and statistical evidence, on the international cooperation dimension of research and on the main issues of the various science fields should be given to all MPs. Research organizations and institutions should get involved in contributing to this basic information on a regular basis.
  
• Providing open and possibly contradictory presentations. Science is not a frozen ensemble of truths, it is a living body which only gets better through the interplay of observation and critical interpretation. So, at any given moment, uncertainties exist. Even if it may be seen counter productive when trying to provide convincing arguments, the limits of knowledge and therefore the need for more research should be clearly stressed.
• Avoiding lobbying for specific projects or science fields. This is maybe illusive due to the high competition researchers are facing, but scientific credibility depends on fairness.
  
• Getting true research-makers involved, not only communicators or established committee aficionados. In particular, young researchers should come to the front and communicate their enthusiasm.
• Getting coordinated. It is time for scientists, at the European level (at first) , to coordinate their outreach efforts, specially towards the national assemblies. Research endeavors are international nowadays, approaches to policy makers should reflect this fact.
  

Implementing platforms for dialog

MPs' very busy agenda may not allow the implementation of all the items of this wish list.
New communication tools should be invented to both cover the national and EU needs

• Specific web sites aggregating societal issues and scientific background for policy-makers,
• regular scientific updates like a weekly "5 minutes science news" to the parliament, one yearly event with a "Science in parliament day" in the national and the EU parliaments
  
• Grouped MPs laboratory visits in Europe,
  
• ...

What else ???

Research is NOT global, ... in many senses.

Science is front page.

Everyday science related news are making headlines: global warming, ocean pollution, overfishing, earthquake prediction, dust clouds, food security, ... you name it. Everyday scientists, experts of the domain or not, are on "Breaking news" to explain, predict and propose solutions.
Science is part of our everyday life and leading the innovation economy.

But today, research which produces this knowledge, research which is dealing with global issues, research which is attempting to uncover the same uncharted science territories whether being done in the US, Europe, Asia or elsewhere is not globally organized so as to meet the needs of the 21st century.

In a global economy, in a world of instant communication, research remains largely segmented in terms of topics, widely scattered geographically, chaotically funded and, besides a few highly praised exceptions, uncoordinated. That makes it unfit to today's societal needs.

The good news is that the science community is addressing these issues. See the first Asia-Europe Physics Summit (ASEPS) held in Tsukuba (Japan), March 24-26, 2010, also here.

Segmented topics: not even an ivory tower, ... a sand hole.

This year the Royal Society of UK is celebrating its 350 years anniversary and the actual birth of "modern science" (17th century). Although the date may be controversial as other historians prefer to time-stamp this birth to Roger Bacon (12th century), the father of experimental science or to the "Copernican revolution" in the 15th century, it is clear that "modern science" really got started when the new paradigm of an unique reliance on experimental or observational data nurturing comprehensive theories took over dogmatism or religious believes.

Then, during the following centuries, modern research has been categorized in smaller and smaller domains to a point that have led researchers to a poor overview of the global issues and of the interplay between the different research fields.
For example, today, a researcher, let say a physicist, which already singles out a small part of the wide research spectrum, can be of "particle physics" flavor, again a small portion of all physicists. She is actually focusing on LHC physics (among dozens of other experiments) more precisely she is on ATLAS (one of four experiments) and a specialist of the Higgs particle (among dozens of other topics) and, maybe, finally only expert of the Higgs mass measurement (but at world-level). It is very likely that she will have only a shallow knowledge on the CMS (another of the four LHC experiments) detailed experimental issues and even less on neutrino physics, her colleague-next-door's specialty. The world of nuclear, plasma, laser or nano-technologies yet part of physics or, even-more, life science research may very well be unknown to her although she is a well-renowned scientist.

Researchers have become hyper-specialized, experts of an everyday smaller and smaller domain. Trapped in their own narrow field, they tend to loose sight of the global issues, like the butterfly hunter of the Kobo Abe novel. In "The woman of the dunes" the man felt in an inescapable sand hole where an attractive woman was also kept prisoner. For a while, the situation was not so bad, after all, even enjoyable but on the long term the situation became dreadful.
Researchers should not be blamed, nobody actually, should. The point is that research has become so complex that committing full time to a narrow topic is a bare necessity to make any real progress.
But this can only be done at the expense of a wider and more global vision, not to mention a vision leaping out of its one domain to another, like from physics to biology. Free from external contingencies, fully focused on what one knows and do best could be, also, an enjoyable situation, ... for a time.
The problem is that this is not what the society wants, not what the decision makers are looking for and are ready to support. What is wanted from the researcher is to bring solutions, not to understand basic processes.

The society wants sustainable, cheap and not polluting energies, abundant, safe and tasty food or efficient cancer cures, but not the Theory Of Everything

In other words, the requirement for achieving frontier research which is, in passing, the only way to, in the long term, provide new and innovative solutions is clashing against the immediate needs of the society. In the first case researchers need to focus for a long time, sometimes a life span, on narrow and deep problems when the second requires wide pluri-disciplinary studies and building bridges between many research fields.
Inviting to the same Summit all major fields of physics and of the applications of physics to other research domains under the banner "Physics Toward Innovation" as do ASEPS is a first step in a reconciliation between basic research and societal needs.

Funding is overly segmented.

This issue just got more acute this last decade as research requires now larger budgets compared to what was needed 50 years ago when, for example, a table-top optical microscope was good enough for making frontier research in biology. Nowadays a 600 MEuro, 350 m synchrotron radiation ring like "Soleil" is the basic biology tool. Well,.. one infrastructure serves many users, but still this price tag is not insignificant for the meager R$D budgets.

Researchers are not financing their research as they used to, a century ago. Research was then supported by themselves or by some wealthy sponsors either merchant or prince. The decision whether to fund or not a project was quite easily done even if sometimes it required convincing down-to-earth arguments.
Nowadays, complex funding organizations have been created. They are, often, built aside of the heart of research, with different goals, different management methods and different time-lines.
Moreover the financing sources have been multiplying. In France, for example, scientific projects can be supported by as many as 5 different types of organizations: local universities, regional government, national research organization like CNRS, INSERM or INRIA, national funding agencies like ANR and by European Grants. In each case, a definite application must be written according to the various motivations and criteria pertaining to each funding organization. This is a cumbersome and time consuming activity taking often a large time of the best scientists.

This is one of the issue addressed by the ASEPS various working groups.

Information is segmented and disparate
Politicians, decision makers, industrial leaders and scientists are not in the same boat.

Congress, senate, diet or other national assembly representatives have usually no scientific background and remain poorly informed on scientific issues. They are more prepared to and more concerned with immediate requests from the society in direct relation with the next elections. At the highest level, Presidents or Prime Ministers have internal affairs urgency which often put decisions on scientific issues at a much lower level (see the last Global warming Copenhagen Summit). Conversation between 2 leaders during a late meeting:

"..., we are not staying until tomorrow. I'm just letting you know. Because all of us obviously have extraordinarily important other business to attend to."

If the society leniently accept the necessity for science, decision makers are sometimes more difficult to convince. The decision makers who have the final word on the budget allocations have sometimes a solid science background, sometimes not, which makes discussions difficult and uneven especially at the international level. Therefore discussion are rare, when they occur, they are often confrontational due to the very competitive funding.

The industry is not either a full fledged research partner. The industry which values the discoveries by creating new technologies and makes them available to the society, the industry which build and sell the large scientific infrastructures and the research instruments without which no modern research could be possible, this industry is not quite involved in the scientific discussion.
Moreover financial objective of short term earning has put long term research and innovation on the slow lane. Innovation is seen as a too expensive investment for many companies. Moreover patenting is hampering research innovation and the research-industry dialog although it was meant to do exactly the opposite.

Therefore the 3 communities that make research, researchers, decision-makers and industry leaders are on different tracks and do not collaborate enough to make research efficient and useful to the society.

The need to setup the appropriate communication channels is blatant.

Finally research is not, geographically, global.

Historically, science has evolved, more or less independently in the various regions of the world. The Arabic, the Incas, the Greek, the Chinese or the Indian sciences have shaped our knowledge. They only had rare contacts through wars or trade. Science became then a national asset and today, although the research issues and questionings are global, we are still counting the number of Nobel laureates by countries.
To a few exceptions, including the European Union R&D funding, most of R&D money is supported by the countries in a very poor coordination.
Some projects are multi-lateral like ITER or regional like CERN or EMBL, they are the result of exceptional historical and political circumstances. It is not clear that today, in the current geopolitical-economical situation, CERN, the flagship of European research, would be even created.


Therefore global research governance is needed but will only come by steps. As for today ASEPS is focusing on the Asia-Europe research cooperation to boost it to the US-Europe and US-Asia levels where the links are well established and easier to maintained mainly because US is a single country.

Europe is since 1984 with the first Framework Plan, in a process of integration even if, today, the FP7 is still only a few % of the European countries R&D investment. Asia is even more diverse and less integrated.
Building an efficient cooperation between so many countries of various level of development around bilateral and progressively multilateral projects is a challenge that ASEPS is expecting to contribute to meet.

ASEPS: Physics at the Top

ASEPS 2010 is the first ASia-Europe Physics Summit in a series meant to reinforce the cooperation in research between the European and Asian countries. On many aspects, the scientific links between the two regions are weaker than those represented by the two other sides of the triangle formed by Europe, America and Asia.

... A balanced partnership between Europe, Asia and America is a crucial aspect of any world-wide endeavor in the field of science and technology. The Summit will deal with programs addressing either issues in fundamental physics or physics research playing a significant role in other fields (i.e. biology, chemistry, earth, space sciences …) ...

The opposite figure (Journal du CNRS, April 2009) shows the sharing of the world internet bandwidth. These are striking numbers, symbolic of deeper imbalance in term of researcher exchange, co-developed patents, joint programs or infrastructures.

The summit targets a second challenging goal: gathering 3 communities which rarely mix: scientists, policy and decision makers and industry leaders:

... The active participation of researchers, decision makers from funding agencies, research organisation and government as well as industry leaders of the European and Asian countries is necessary for the success of this initiative. ...

The kickoff meeting will be held at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, July 24, 2009.

You may contact aseps_at_kek.jp for more info.
Being part of the organising committee, I am welcoming, on this blog, discussions on this challenging project.

The top-10 research projects

Research investments in crisis times.

The economic crisis has both dramatic and surprising consequences. The credit crunch is curbing the industrial activity, deglobalization and protectionism are surfacing, the euro is challenged, public deficits and unemployment rates are surging ...
But, interestingly enough, most of the stimuli plans injecting trillions of dollars in the economies include provisions to boost R&D as research and innovation are seen by the politicians as one of the few available lifelines.
The stimuli plan breadcrumbs (2-3%) devoted to R&D are quiet substantial when seen from the research community (for example: 21 B$ in the US). They amount to doubling the yearly budget of some research organizations.
So, in this credit crunch times, research ends up with a lot of money to spend, which is, at first sight, good. But when the immediate needs are covered, the main question becomes: what to do with and how to spend this bonanza in a year or so.
We, researchers, have always said that long term and sustained investments in research were more efficient than changing policies and short term vision, even if large support are temporarily given, but here we are.
Hiring researchers/engineers/post-docs for one year would make no sense, neither would buying expensive equipments on which neither manpower nor maintenance could be secured. Moreover it would not serve the stimulus plan goal to save the money for covering long term research. Then what ?

One possible way would be to get more international and to jump start a couple of world-wide large scale research projects relying on the international sharing of the long term running costs.
This would imply a reshuffling of the current investment plans and projected budget spendings, but it would be worth the effort. As a side effect, it would make basic research more global.

But which projects ? what are, today, the top-10 science projects that could benefit to the world from this unplanned large support. Let me propose here a few selection criteria (you may comment).
The project should be:

• Of great scientific importance
• Internationally accepted as such
  
• Technologically ready, but
• Advanced enough (not to be obsolete once built)
  
• Serving a large community (optionally larger than the initiator field)
  

I can see a few examples in particle/accelerator physics, nuclear physics, astrophysics, space, nanotechnology, life science, computing... but I do not want to bias your comments.

Let's have a short survey:

What is your favorite, most needed project ? (see status of the survey after submitting)


RoadMaps and long term planning:
Many long term R&D forecasts have been prepared these last years in science, in general, and in some more particular fields (energy, health, particle physics, astroparticle,..). Each plan has often been made at the country level or, in the best case, at the regional level (EU), but none have been discussed at the international level.
A compilation of the various plans may help fore coming discussions:

• EU: ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures: a list of 44 large scale projects
• EU: ASPERA Strategy for Astroparticle physics
  
• US: DOE (Department of Energy) roadmaps and science with a mission.
• UK: STFC (Science and Technology Facility Council)
• Germany: BMFM Health research program
• ... more to come from your input ..

If you have been involved in such a roadmap discussions or, simply, if you happen to have read such a document, just fill the following form.

Should we continue scientific research?

In the last issue of Sciences&Avenir (July 2008) a short article on Alexandre Grothendieck, a french mathematician, is presented in connection with the up-coming publication by IHéS (Institut des Hautes études Scientifiques) of a 1000 pages book he wrote, mostly about his life.
"Récoltes et Semailles" is available free on the Grothendieck_circle web site in French but some parts are also available in English, Spanish, Russian ... Many other writings both on mathematics and on his political activities can also be found on this well documented site. See also "Comme Appelé du Néant— As If Summoned from the Void: The life of Alexandre Grothendieck by Allyn Jackson".

This 1966 Field medal laureate decided when he was at the top of his carrier to resign from IHéS partly after discovering that his institute was, to some extend (5%), supported by the defense ministry.

He started then a new life as a "anti-militarist" activist accepting to give mathematic talks only if he could also present his political ideas.

With a few other scientists, he founded an international movement called "Survivre" for the survival of mankind and a newsletter was published from 1970 to 1973.

1) Goal of the Movement
To fight for the survival of mankind and of life in general threatened by the ecological imbalance created by the present industrial society (pollutions and environmental and natural resources devastation), by military conflicts themselves and even by the dangers of military conflicts.

For a short period, he gave a lecture at the "College de France" (CDF) in Paris entitled: «Faut-il continuer la recherche scientifique ?» (Should we continue scientific research?) he was then turned down by the assembly of the CDF professors. He gave also a talk (in French) at CERN on this provocative question.

These writings raise important issues (central to this blog) that any scientist, at one point or another of his life, has been concerned with. A.G. should then be acknowledged for underlying the responsibility of the scientists toward the society at large, the role of science in the making of War and Peace and the implication of new technologies on the planet ecology.

Jean-Jacques Salomon, a French philosopher and writer who died last January had also strong criticisms on the underestimated social responsibility of the scientist (la responsabilite du scientifique) that sometimes he calls the social irresponsibility of scientists (Talk). But J.J. Salomon was also a convinced supporter of basic science. (why sustain fundamental research).
He was remembered recently during a conference of the Japan Sokendai group "War and Peace" (see also here and there) by D. Leglu (War and Peace Tokyo 2008 to be published).

Back to the question "Should we continue scientific research?" IMHO YES, because stopping would mean stopping thinking.
From the prehistorical ages, the act of thinking has been dedicated to the research of ways to, precisely, survive: accessing basic needs (food, shelter, ...), providing a more secure and better life, fighting disease, reaching mental/spiritual balance ... This personal and permanent search for survival has led to the survival of humanity. Even if man was physically weaker on many respects than most of the other animals, his thinking brain has got, for better or worse, the upper hand over all life on this planet. And we are still doing research because all questions have not been solved, because some of the solutions found must be revisited as they are not fit to our today world, because new questions arise ...
Have we reached the no return point where man is becoming dangerous to man? Yes probably, since sometime, pollution and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) could now destroy the world as it was feared by A.G. but solutions will not be found by advocating for less research but on the contrary to more in the hope to find new technical innovations and a new social organization to avoid the "big human crunch".

To the question "Should we continue scientific research the way we do it today?" A.G. in the CERN's talk reply by a strong NO. Research brings more harm than relief. Unavoidably all scientific results are and will be used to improve the military power, to more efficiently coerce people into slavery (George Orwell's 1984) and to contribute to the destruction of the planet ecology.

Well one can agree with this but, it is only up to us ( the society) to fight against the evil use of science and to us to promote a peaceful, free and sustainable world that science and technology can also contribute to provide.
What should be changed in the way we do research? One may advance on many fronts:

1. Scientist's Rights: If scientists have responsibilities, they must also have rights: the right to oppose to some applications of science and the right to speak out openly without constrains or retaliation risks. How to fulfill these conditions is a major issue and will imply a change of society. But the solution will include a better protection of the scientists although not excluding some control by the society and more regulations at the global level (arms, pollution, resources, labor, ...) to the setting up of which scientists should participate...
2. Improving the common understanding between scientists and politician/decision makers. The gap is often large in term of scientific/political knowledge, short and long term visions and goals, agenda ... although both communities are genuinely willing to bridge those differences (see for example here)
   
3. Moving away from a market/profit-driven research: Research funding should be managed by scientific organizations even if the global envelop is set directly or indirectly by the society. Public or private, it is not so much the source of the budget which counts, it is the freedom which comes with it. However public money is the direct effort of the society to support an open research.
   
4. Making science information more accessible to the people. Internet can play a major role through the development of open access and good informative sites. Scientists are committing themselves and spending a fair amount of time on science internet forums, high quality scientific blogs, science cafés (real or virtual), world science festivals ...
5. Get the people involved in scientific research. Some attempts although modests are quite successful and more attention should be devoted to those activities. After the "Volunteer Computing" initiated by seti@home and generalized by BOINC where anyone with a PC connected to the internet could dedicate CPU power to some scientific project, "citizen science" or "distributed thinking" (see Bossa) is now relying on ordinary people to perform large classification or pattern recognition tasks where human brains, even from non-scientifically trained people, are often much better than computers (see The Economist and galaxy zoo, or stardurst@home).
   
6. Research and particularly basic research should become Global. Country level basic research makes no sense nowadays, resources must be federated and the results made freely available to the whole world. New world-wide research infrastructures should be developed based on international treaties like CERN to secure long term budgets. In this context the LHC and ITER projects among others should provide important inputs to this discussion.
   
7. Developing countries should be involved on frontier research and in particular on the large research infrastructures to help solving the knowledge divide.
   

Proof reading this post, I wonder if these 7 items are actually achievable or pure utopia leading to the dishearten thought that A. Grothendieck was maybe right... but is'nt utopia sustaining progress?