Here is a summary of our Brainstorming webinar on Boosting innovation in science, from May 28, 2024 .
Please send us your comments about this summary. It is a work in progress! inst.sci.dis@gmail.com
Background
Science must, by definition, be innovative: Research is all about creating new observations, new theses, new studies. Nevertheless, in recent years it has become evident that science (as a whole, not specific disciplines or researchers) is actually becoming less innovative and less disruptive.
Why is this happening, and is there a way for us to re-boost innovation in science?
To further investigate this question we held a Brainstorming webinar.
You can watch the webinar here:
Participants
Webinar hosts:
Moti Shatner, Marco Masia
Guests:
Sara Ricardo, Eddie Lee
Participants in the discussion that offered their comments, insights and ideas (thanks!):
Anna Brook, Michele Garfinkel, Ariel Nishri, Daniel Schnaider
Main discussion points and insights
1. Moti Shatner, IOSD, presented the awkward status of science, and the opportunity to unlock its true potential.
Studies show that while the number of scientific publications doubles (!) every 14-17 years, and while science budgets are generally increasing, scientific research (as a whole) is becoming less innovative, less disruptive, less productive.
Scientific research can be directed towards Incremental progression (InP) or Disruptive Progression (DisP). InP is much easier to perform, to quantify and to incentivize. It mostly means moving forward in existing trajectories, while aiming for low hanging fruit (which become scarcer).
DisP, on the other hand, is something that Science in its current structure is not ready to boost or digest. Moving more and more into InP means that science is cornering itself.
A metaphor from Physics was given – Physics is a highly sophisticated discipline. Still, around 95% of matter and energy is categorized as “black” and we hardly know anything about it.
Similarly, science is like a beam of light. Most of research is conducted within the small spot this beam creates. For DisP we rather need to focus on the edge of the light, and go further.
Coming from the high tech world, this seems like a great opportunity to boost science with new perspectives and ways of thinking.
2. Marco Masia, from the University of Vienna and IOSD, analyzed the main drivers of scientific research, and suggested insights for academia.
If we ignore for the moment political considerations that govern a great deal of research budgets, we can pinpoint several obstacles that hurt innovation in science.
Firstly, science should be less constrained to solving highly specific problems, or directed toward “use”. Historically, this kind of approach marked important breakthroughs and is usually referred to as the “Pasteur quadrant”. A change in structure and in teaching formats is required to bring back curiosity and interdisciplinarity into science.
Secondly, global crises such as the COVID pandemic and the Ozone threat offered a new type of collaboration and fast-track science. We should keep implementing lessons from these “outliers”.
Thirdly, an exponential increase in complexity in scientific research should lead to a rethinking process on how science is conducted. We cannot go forward with the same structure that was created in a much less complicated world.
3. Sara Ricardo, from Siris Academic (Spain), and Eddie Lee, from Complexity Science Hub (Austria) offered insights on what universities should do to empower researchers and boost innovative research.
Universities and research institutions come in many flavors, therefore boosting research and innovation is not “one size fits all”.
A first move towards more innovation could be allowing researchers to have more “free research” time, that is not directed towards highly structured results. In the InP-DisP taxonomy, this is translated into having more DisP time slots on the researcher’s calendar.
A second move would be to break the silos in which most research is currently conducted: Ignore disciplines, go into unconventional collaboration and so on.
An important factor that can make this happen is of course funding. Today, “Blue sky” funding is still a small percentage of total research.
[Moti Shatner’s comment: My view is that “blue sky” funding, i.e. high-risk high-reward research may create more innovation but is not necessarily creating DisP research. In many cases it is directed towards basic/fundamental research, which is not the same as disruptive research. Moreover, we know from the startup world that non targeted efforts (e.g. Blue sky) is not synonymous with “not fully defined goal”. The latter is much more effective in producing results.]
Brainstorming session
Several ideas were introduced during the discussion.
Please note that we did not conduct market research and the ideas are presented “as is” to provoke further discussion.
1. New entity
A question was asked – If universities move very slowly, should we think about a new entity that would be targeted solely towards disruption? We could not define this new entity. TBD.
2. New indices and KPIs
Science currently does not offer clear KPIs and incentives for researchers to go into DisP. Most KPIs focus on the number of publications, weighted by “quality” measures. There are some “innovation” measurements, mainly the number of startups or patents originating from the university, fundraising for applied and fundamental research and so on.
Nevertheless, these measurements do not solve the main challenge, which is how to promote innovation. Some universities are “naturally” ranked better in these indices, while others do not know how to improve.
Is there a way to create new indices and KPIs that lean towards disruption?
That’s another TBD.
3. Crowdsourcing alternative
Finally, an idea was suggested (Ariel Nishri) – Science is currently relying on a handful of readers/referees in evaluating publications (and thereby promoting innovation).
Why not consider a crowdsourcing alternative, in which a larger group of people upvote or downvote publications according to their innovation value and potential.
In the commercial world it’s been working quite well with outlets like “product hunt”, where people identify innovation in a collective way.
On the other hand, this path may lead to widespread "deals" among voters and new power structures. Studies that are currently essentially hidden may get much more attention, but the winners may not be too innovative. A somewhat similar format can be found on Qeios's website, for the scientific papers that the site publishes.
Another TBD.