Science Day aftermath and a Field of Dreams

I had no idea that the organizers of the Science Day event (May 27, 2009 in Toronto, Canada) were going to generate a report.  Thanks to Rob Annan for digging it up (you can see his comments about the document here and you can find the document itself, here). Two items that got my attention were:

  1. Attracting and nurturing talented researchers and entrepreneurs
  2. Communicating science is essential

As Rob notes. the report is a little fuzzy about operationalizing these  fine ideas (and others mentioned in the report).  Notice this from the report,

Our education system must train people – scientists included – to be entrepreneurs, not employees, imbuing an ethos of creativity and risk-taking amongst all citizens.

There is already some sort of granting programme (CREATE) whereby graduate students are supposed to be developing their entrepreneurial spirits. I mentioned it here and the problem from my perspective is this: how does a graduate student learn to be entrepreneurial from a senior researcher who’s a tenured professor in an academic environment? Where did the senior researcher get their experience?

As for an “… ethos of creativity and risk-taking …” we do have that, sort of. Generally speaking it gets knocked out of you by the time you’re 40 or, in too many cases, before graduating from grade school. The report does note the lack of substantive support for this grand new ethos but there is scant (no) attention paid to how it will be achieved. Perhaps they imagine a Field of Dreams situation whereby, if you think it, it will happen.

The second item that caught my attention, Communicating science is essential, is a concept I am in sympathy with when taken in its broadest sense. However, my experience, admittedly not vast, of talking to scientists about communication suggests that scientists tend to believe science communication is unidirectional (“I will tell you about my fabulous work and you will listen devotedly and then you will support it”). In fact, the examples used in the report illustrate my point,

Consider just two examples. Public lectures about theoretical physics, held monthly at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, draw standing-room only crowds. A recent ad campaign on Toronto public transit, featuring photos and factoids about the cosmos, generated so much interest that the Astronomy department at UofT [University of Toronto], which developed the campaign, plans to run a similar promotion in Montreal. In a society dominated by rapidly advancing technology, science stories – told well – naturally resonate with the public.

I like this model and, in some situations, it works very well. The problem is that it’s incomplete. Communication is multi-layered and multi-leveled and the science literacy model that’s being touted in this report is limited as it fails to take into account complexity.

I’m glad to see a science policy discussion brewing even if my comments are critical.

3 thoughts on “Science Day aftermath and a Field of Dreams

  1. Rob Annan

    Great analysis. I think your point about two-way communication is a really important one. If the public feels like stakeholders in the research process, they’re likely to be a lot more enthusiastic about it. It’s like the difference between old fashioned newspapers and web2.0. One is unidirectional, the other is participatory.

    I totally agree that there are problems with the report’s approach to fostering entrepreneurship among scientists. It’s a real challenge, and I personally don’t think taking business courses while in grad school is going to have any effect. It’ll just prepare grads for management positions in companies. I’m going to blog tomorrow about tech startup communities as both a model and a source for graduate students looking to get out of academia and become entrepreneurs. There is a spirit of entrepreneurship in this country – including among graduate students – it just needs support.

  2. admin

    Hi Rob! It’s good to hear from you and I look forward to your blog about tech startup communities tomorrow. I’m chuffed that you think highly of this analysis. I quite agree that taking a business while in grad school is not going to be helpful in fostering entrepeneurship; in fact, it’s barely helpful for management positions (I’ve worked with MBAs … big difference between course work/theory and their application in real life).

  3. Pingback: More school not the answer to academic entrepreneurship « Researcher Forum

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