Change is inherent to our society; we are supposed to believe that change is positive. Ok.
But during my adult life, and I mean mature adult life, I observed that not only “things change”, but paradigms change.
I suspect that there is a driving (economical) force behind and not just the changing habits.
Here one example. When we were students in the 80s, we felt that being a student at the University of Zurich was much better, more intellectual, than being a student of the ETH, a very prestigious university for science and engineering. This, because we found it little honorable to do applied science and get support from industry. We used to tease friends who studied at the ETH by calling them slaves of Brown Boveri, a Swiss electrical engineering group. We thought (maybe we did not know all the facts) that research at the university was funded by the Swiss government, meaning the Swiss National Research Foundation. The simple fact that the funding agency selects whom and what to fund, makes this process a driver in their own interest. But neglecting what the facts were, our opinion was that funding should be free of any interest and therefore should come from public resources. Only such neutral bodies could judge projects purely for their intellectual quality and novelty.
Today things have changed. Of my approximately 20 grants, more than half are from private donors, foundations, or industry. In terms of amounts granted, this is even more disproportional. Thus, when writing projects today one does not only put forward that the idea is great, interesting, a fundamental new concept, etc., but that the value generated with this idea will have a market.
Furthermore, scientists are encouraged to found companies to create jobs. There is a whole new world out there forming people to go into that direction. No matter how long they survive. They created jobs for themselves and for others during that period. Do research to find something applicable, something you can turn into a market idea! This is the ultimate change of a paradigm.
Tags: Science
