Dear young scientists, Nobel Laureates and guests.
It is a great pleasure for my brother, Count Björn Bernadotte,
and myself to welcome you here today, and I hope you will have a wonderful panel discussion.
Welcome to the panellists, and enjoy the morning.
Dear Nobel Laureates, dear young scientists.
Dear Senator Dr. Storch, Dear State Secretary Dr. Schütte,
dear Permanent Secretary Murawski, dear Ministerial Director Dr. Schwanitz,
dear Scientific Chairman Professor Kärre and Kaufmann,
dear participants in the today panel discussion, dear representatives of the media,
dear Lindau team, dear guests.
It is a special honour for me to welcome you, 37 Nobel Laureates,
and more than 600 young scientists from around 80 countries here on Mainau Island.
For five days, already, you have been experiencing an open exchange between generations and cultures.
And I sincerely hope that today Mainau Island will provide an atmosphere that further enhances
this most valuable dialogue.
May you all benefit from it and live the Lindau spirit "educate, inspire, connect".
My sister, Countess Bettina, and I are proud to continue the commitment that our father started in 1951.
His dedication is the reason on account of which I welcome you on Mainau Island today.
Together with two physicians from Lindau,
Count Lennart established The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings and continuously developed them
into an international hub of scientific exchange where masters and students of different disciplines
can encounter one and another in an unforced atmosphere.
This connexion between Mainau and the contemporary scientific exchange is very valuable to me.
The support of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings is a declared target of the Lennart Bernadotte Foundation,
which our parents brought to life in the 1970s.
And this also expresses the strong links between the meetings and the Bernadotte family on Mainau Island.
"Science for the benefit of mankind" is the topic of the following discussion.
May the gardens of our island inspire this discussion and also your talks in small circles.
And now, enjoy the discussion, thank you very much.
Count and Countess, thank you very much (in Swedish).
I'm the chairman, I'm Geoffrey Carr.
I'm not a scientist, although I was one, a long, long time ago.
Longer ago than I can remember, really.
So, I'm in a perfect position of ignorance to chair a meeting between these wonderful experts.
I'd like to welcome you as well.
Those few of you, who've been here before may recognise me. You'll know the form.
For the rest of you, what I propose to do is introduce my fellow panellists.
Throw a question at each of them, which they have been primed about, so should be able to answer.
And, also ask them what bit of science would be valuable to mankind
that we're not doing very well at the moment and perhaps should be spending more money on.
That should take half an hour or so, and after that I will open the floor to the rest of you.
There are two mics.
Don't be shy.
We have to get through till lunchtime, otherwise it'll be embarrassing for me, and probably for you.
So keep the questions coming until 1 o'clock, and I hope we will have an enjoyable and productive discussion.
So, for the benefit of mankind.
My fellow panellists are Georg Schütte, who is State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Research
and knows these meetings well and will give us the view from the politician's side of things,
where the hard questions have to be addressed and answered
about, first of all, how much money to spend on things, and what general topics that money should be spent on.
Then we have Professor Brian Schmidt, who's an active physicist.
Works for the Australian National University.
He is a Laureate.
He won the prize for physics in 2011 for proving the expansion of the universe is accelerating.
We don't yet know why, but this was a crucial result in physics.
Most extraordinary, I thought.
I'd always though it was slowing down, as I think most people had.
And he will be addressing the question of why anybody should pay for astrophysics, I think.
Then we have Professor Ghada Bassioni, who is head of chemistry at the Faculty of Engineering
at Ain Shams University in Cairo.
And she is also executive committee member of the Young Global Academy,
which is a virtual network of scientists under 40 who are trying to shake things up,
as everybody under 40 tries to do before they discover that
actually you can't shake things up all that much. But I'm sure you'll succeed.
And then we have Professor Charles Mgone who is the Director of the
European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership trying to work out and spread best practise
in medical research to countries whose scientific institutions are being built up rather than well established.
And finally, we have Professor Francoise Barre-Sinoussi,
who is one of the discoverers of HIV and therefore the person on this panel
who's probably done more than anybody else, actually to bring benefits to mankind.
Because the analysis of HIV and the development from nowhere of a regime which over the course of 20, 25 years
has gotten to the point where we can now control that epidemic.
It's not over, but it can be controlled.
We know how to do it.
And the number of lives that have been saved that way is absolutely awesome.
And if I was wearing a hat, I would take it off to you.
I think what you did was extraordinary.
So those are the panellists.
And the first question - I would normally do ladies first, but I think it works better in this order - is to Doctor Schütte.
Which is how should governments decide the balance between hard-nosed research,
which will almost certainly have a practical impact, speculative research that may never pay off,
and things like cosmology, which can have no practical pay off, but may change the way we think about the world?
Doctor Schütte.
Alright, thank you very much for the question, and I've been thinking about it for quite some time.
And my first reaction would be to ask you.
If we talk about science for the benefit of mankind, and me, as somebody who
represents the political field and the field of political administration,
it's probably quite difficult to tell anybody what kind of science is for the benefit of mankind.
So my question would be to you, and I would like to ask you to raise your hand.
Who of you does science for the benefit of mankind?
Alright, thank you very much.
I'm delighted to see this kind of response because the first approach then is
that science to the benefit of mankind is related to dedication.
To dedication and conviction that this type of question
is important and that you thought about it before or while you're doing the type of research you do.
How do we, within the political field, decide what's important?
Let's narrow it down to health research.
We had an advisory panel on health research, and we tried to reallocate our funding.
So we asked the experts who were sitting around the table:
What type of research is important in your understanding?
And the person who does cardiovascular disease research says, of course, cardiovascular diseases.
And then somebody said kidney research, of course, it's kidney.
And last, but not least, the dental health person said it's periodontosis because whatever you eat,
it first comes into your mouth, and then you digest it.
So our outcome was that the first response was, that everybody says my field of research is important.
And of course it is, because it's the same level of dedication that people have.
So how do we react in the political field?
We try to provide funding in different fields and on different levels.
And if you look at, for example, the current European research funding scheme
the new research framework programme Horizon 20/20.
We spent a lot of time on the German level to discuss with colleagues within Europe
how to design this programme.
And it pretty much also reflects the German situation, and we have three pillars.
One is curiosity driven, individual type of research.
On the European level it's funded by the European Research Council.
These are individual grants or small collaborative grants.
It's completely blue sky research.
You can come up with an application from whatever field you're working in.
And it's based on excellence.
It's peer reviewed.
It's an internal scientific, an internal process within the scientific community.
In addition to that, a second pillar is research which addresses the big societal challenges,
or global challenges of the time.
And this is a sermon which is being preached now in almost every country.
Every country has a programme that addresses climate change,
that addresses the future of energy supply on the globe, that addresses infectious diseases,
that addresses food security.
So we can name those big challenges, and we have to pool funding to address
those challenges which are fairly obvious.
And a third pillar on the European level, and we have the same on the national level then,
is research that translates into products and services which translates into jobs
and employment opportunities and which contributes to value creation.
So this is the general scheme under which we allocate money, and then, we in Germany, decided on open competition.
It is the best proposal that has to get the adequate funding
and we have to set up the right processes to make sure that the best and the brightest are the one
who then receive the money.
Thank you.
Professor Schmidt, your question was to justify yourself.
How does knowing more about the expansion rate of the universe benefit humanity?
So, interestingly enough, this question is asked to me a lot, often by politicians.
They'll hear a talk about what I said, and say "Ah, that is so great. Why do we pay for you to do this?"
That's a common question.
So, we do it for a number of reasons.
When I travel around the world, and I get the opportunity to travel just about everywhere,
if I go to a 10-year-old, and I discuss what I do, it doesn't matter if it's Namibia,
it's the outback of Australia, if it's Germany, it's the United States where I grew up,
and I tell them what I do, they are almost 100% interested.
They look at the sky, they want to understand our place in the universe.
I think it is a universal part of being human, to want to understand our place in the universe.
And so with that sense, the reason why we do cosmology and we do, for example, things at CERN,
which I'll pump into ourselves to the same area today, is because it's interesting.
We have innate human curiosity about exploring our part of the universe and I think that's not going to go away.
But that doesn't answer the question of why do governments pay for it because I think that's a different question.
The reason they pay for it is because it's useful.
Why is it useful?
Because by going through and taking some of the most talented people in the world
and giving them these big open-ended problems, problems where you don't know the answer,
where you don't know the knowledge, you don't have the technology, you have to develop those things.
And you develop new tools to answer "How big is the universe?"
So, for example, I was looking in this last four or five days,
and I saw all sorts of things that came out of the physics that I do.
I saw a medical imaging devices based on CCD's using techniques that we did in astronomy.
I see bioinformatics work that was based out of the physics
and astronomy where we were doing it 25 years ago, which is used.
I see people who have crossed over from physics to help do some of the hard, cutting-edge things
about how cells and things work on a very fundamental level.
We see the quantum chemists who are using work from that fundamental area of quantum mechanics.
Through society we see, you know, whether or not it's the X-ray machine
that was done out of the X-ray programmes, our digital cameras have a lot to do
with the work and developing of digital cameras we have.
My colleagues in Australia developed Wi-Fi from looking at evaporating black holes.
They never found Steven Hawkings' evaporating black holes, but they did use that idea
to make Australia's largest, single-patented invention.
Guys at CERN developed the worldwide web.
It's useful, but it's not predictable.
So my minister always says, "Well what are you going to do next?"
And the answer is I don't know, that is the point.
And why you spend a fraction, probably a third of your money, on just going out and trying to develop knowledge.
It's always worked in the past, it's very easy not to do it in the present
because the money you invest now doesn't give you the things you want for 20 years.
But I think you would be playing with fire if you think you're just going to develop
the things that you want because you will only develop what you know.
And the part of what I do, and people who work in basic research, not just in astronomy,
the world over, has developed the things we don't know.
And to show how valuable it is, in the global financial crisis, what discipline had the lowest unemployment rate?
PhDs in physics, essentially zero.
So, it's useful.
Thank you.
Yes, there are those who would argue that the global financial crisis was caused
by the extremely complicated mathematical packages that were put together by those PhDs
that nobody else understood.
I agree.
We actually probably did...
You are actually responsible for wrecking the world economy.
Absolutely, but we still remained employed.
You heard it here first.
Professor Bassioni, the question I asked you was:
"Should scientists in developing countries focus on practical problems and leave blue sky research to others?"
Thank you for the question.
Well, I wish I could deliver a similar answer like Professor Schmidt, of course.
The things is that, based on my own experience, I had lots of dreams.
I did my masters and PhD at the Technical University of Munich in organometallic chemistry, magnetic materials.
I was so happy that I achieved it, I made it.
I went back home and said, "Yeah, I have this PhD now."
And I was faced with the, of course, the challenge of "what's next".
So, they were not really fond of what I did because it was more into basic research
and I belonged to the faculty of engineering, so they wanted to have some applications for what I was doing.
So they sent me back to Germany to learn something useful.
So I went back and I went to the construction materials department
and I learned about cement and additives, and so I was proud of myself that I was flexible enough
and it did not go into this frustration hole that
"you're stuck, you have done so much in your masters and PhD and then it's for nothing".
And then when I was really delivering well and I went afterwards to Abu Dhabi
to coordinate the collaboration between the Technical University of Munich and the Petroleum Institute there.
And there I learned petroleum chemistry - so again, a new challenge.
So I'm really flexible, and I think this is key for developing countries,
it's very important to stay flexible enough.
Now I am back and after the revolution I wanted to build up the country
and have dreams, have a vision, and I really believe that I can change the world.
So, maybe it's the fun part, that I'm still under 40, but the thing is that it really can be achieved.
So when I went there, I was nominated for the Nobel Laureate meeting in 2012,
and I think this was the driving force for me to think
"well, wow, people, we can mingle together, we can collaborate, and we can work together".
So even if I have to go away from basic research a little bit and stick to applications
because of economic challenges we face at our countries,
it doesn't matter because we have good collaborators all over the world who are willing to help us.
There are lots of solutions to this particular case.
We can have one project, which would fund the application part,
but on the other hand have another student who's doing the basic part,
working hand in hand to deliver a good product in the end.
And then when I was forcing my vision, I got promoted.
I was the chair of the chemistry department there, and suddenly I came into the contact
with the Global Young Academy, and I started to reach out.
I was able to say what I had in mind.
We are the voice of young scientists, we made it to the United Nations
in January and we are invited at the European Union next week to put research policy
for Europeans in terms of collaboration with others.
So I think we can do it if we really believe in it.
I have now a joint appointment with the Ministry of Scientific Research in Egypt,
and of course, I have to confess that administration is now really focusing on national challenges.
We have big programmes about national challenges.
We are facing energy problems, water problems, so that's why, of course,
I can understand that the administration is looking at short term solutions.
But on the long term: aren't we really writing our death sentence if we quit basic sciences
and just stick to applications?
We have wonderful people with potential, lots of innovation, very good ideas.
Why should we just put them into this box of focusing on things what others have done
and just develop a little bit further about the application part?
I think it's a big mistake if we just stick to that, but as I said, we have other solutions.
We can overcome this particular period in our countries.
Thank you.
Professor Mgone, your question was how do you make science a global good rather than one
that is focused mainly on the needs of the wealthy?
Thank you.
In a sense this is echoing or following up on what Ghada said.
But I'll start from the beginning.
The world is shrinking and it's shrinking very fast.
The so-called problems of the wealthy, problem of the developed world, they are all now being seen
in the developing countries as well.
So in developing countries, actually, they're having a double whammy that
besides the traditional problems they have of neglected diseases, tropical diseases,
communicable diseases.
They are also now seeing more and more of what normally would be seen in the Western world,
in the developed countries.
Cardiovascular disorders, diabetes, everything, cancer, name it all.
So, yes, we may be spending quite a lot of money because, I mean, unfortunately with our research,
it is the one who pays for the research decides what he wants to do, or what they want to do.
So, we may be spending quite a lot of money on the so-called Western problems,
and forgetting about the problems like what Georg talked about earlier on, food security, nutrition in general.
Still these other problems do actually impinge upon, or affect, people in developing countries.
Having said that, yes, there is a need to invest more on diseases or on problems that affect people
of the developing world.
This is for the global good, because as I said at the beginning,
we are a shrinking world, we are interrelated, whatever happens in Seattle will happen somehow in Ouagadougou.
What happens in Ouagadougou will impinge on what is happening in New York.
So we're all living in one bowl together and rubbing shoulders all the time.
But, having said that, the other thing that I believe a lot is that to try very much, also,
to empower people living in developing worlds to be able to do the research which is pertinent to their problems.
Things like food security.
Diseases which disproportionately affect them more than other people of the world.
So they need, themselves, to develop the culture,
of having organisers for the better of the mankind, but also to finance that science
whatever they leader they have, they should be able to do that.
So, one of the thing is cooperation between the developed world
and the developing world in terms of science.
Working together to create the right environment,
and also capacity building and empowerment of the weaker ones so that they are all speaking or singing
from the same hymn book.
Thank you.
And finally, Professor Barre-Sinoussi.
Which brought more benefit to mankind?
The practical research of Louis Pasteur or the theoretical work of Charles Darwin?
Thank you.
A very difficult question.
Indeed if you answer spontaneously, without thinking too much, of course you would answer Louis Pasteur.
Louis Pasteur, because he was the origin of the germ theory with Robert Koch.
Of course, because everybody remembers Pasteur as the one who discovered vaccine with Jenner.
Of course, everybody remembers that he saved the life of Joseph Meister
with the rabies vaccine that, by the way, could not be used today in this kind of experiment,
according to the regulations we have, will never happen today.
Of course Louis Pasteur had a vision not to make the science for the benefit of mankind only in the rich country,
but also to spread the knowledge and develop science for the developing world as well.
It's how now we have started two Pasteur Institute in the world, by the way.
So spontaneously, the answer is Louis Pasteur, then you think a little bit more.
And finally, you say, the Darwin theory of evolution, there was a lot of controversy about this theory.
But if you look now, he was also...
He had also a vision, a wonderful vision, that meant a wonderful progress for science and for mankind.
Of course, the evolution theory is the origin of the modern science, if you look carefully.
It is the origin of knowledge on natural selection, on knowledge, on genetic susceptibility to infection,
the impact of the genetic on the response of the host to a treatment, to a vaccination.
Escape to treatment, genetic resistance of the host to a treatment or to vaccine.
He's certainly at the origin of what we call the genomics today.
At the origin of system biology.
He's at the origin probably of what will be in the future personalised medicine.
So, a difficult question.
Difficult.
That's why I asked.
The question, I will say of course, that both had a critical role
for the science for the benefit of mankind.
And we need both, we need both and I take this opportunity
to say don't forget that theory and concept are very important.
It's not only technology, of course technology are important for the progress of science,
but concept is the first point.
Then the technology is there to try to validate the concept and we should keep that in mind.
We should keep that in mind, particularly the politician.
Who these days, everywhere in the world, including in my country, in France,
are pushing very much for application of science,
cooperation between the public and the academy and the private sector.
They have, as you said, Mr. Schütte, programme open for basic science.
But we must remember that it will not be new discovery, new application, without concept,
without basic science in the future.
So that's a little bit my concerns these days.
It is that we hear politicians everywhere in the world speaking about the usage
of science in term of application.
And I'm saying that even if I am, as you said, among the researchers that have a basic sciences originally,
but I tried to translate and contribute to transition as fast as possible in tools for the benefit of humanities.
But without basic science, we would not have these tool today and the patient would still die.
I'm going backwards along the line: What is your one thing that you feel is under,
for the benefit of mankind and not your own research, what field do you think should be pushed forward?
I already spoke about basic science, of course, but now what I'm going to say is totally the opposite.
Implementation science.
Implementation science is not enough supported.
And of course, when the scientists in the world has delivered, has delivered tools
for the benefit of humanity and you see that those tool are not yet available
for the people everywhere in the world, there are question to be answered.
And this is implementation science.
Professor Mgone?
When you asked me this question, it was one of the most difficult things.
Like you asked a question for exam, you said, okay this is what we're going to ask you for exam and prepare yourself.
I still haven't found an answer because every time I look into this, every angle I look into this,
whatever I choose ends up in being health-related.
And I'm told not to think about health, so the answer here to me is that,
and it's probably this way, I'm not a Laureate in this circle, I'm not an inventor but I wish I was a young person.
Because when you are young and you don't have a blinker, your eyes are not closed, tunnel vision like myself,
if you talk to me, I speak no religion except for health research.
So I can't think out of the box, but if I had to choose at least one thing which is not health-related,
this is a common problem people talk about it all the time,
but the more I look at it, the more I think it's a very important is
"how to come up with the most efficient fuel system for everything".
Here I'm talking not just for lighting your house, but transportation and everything, but real over-arching.
So that's one of the things I think is under-researched a lot.
Why?
I don't know.
Thank you.
Professor Bassioni.
Well I would say that the one thing we are not investigating too much in is young scientists.
Invest in young scientists, they have dreams, make use of that.
They have a vision, they know what they want to do, more or less, and they have potential, enormous potential.
So please make use of that, invest more in young scientists, trust in them.
The problem is that we don't trust in them too much.
Thank you.
I think this question
requires us to look at applied research because I can't tell you what to work in basic research,
you just need to do some of it.
When I look across the problems of the world, I see at the core of the future problems
for the next 100 years, it is probably energy.
And energy is a trillion-dollar problem, it's not a billion-dollar problem,
it's a trillion-dollar problem and so that's about the GDP of the United States for a year.
So you're not spend it all in one year, but I think we need to solve that problem.
And the idea of financial instruments on a emissions trading scheme for carbon
is a start, but it's not going to solve the problem.
Because we have a technology shortfall of which companies individually investing
are not going to probably be able to capture the benefit.
So it's a societal problem and whenever you have societal problems,
you need to invest as a government and we need to be investing big time
because the window of where we can easily solve
the consequences of what we've done already are rapidly closing.
And if you have a reliable energy source solving health problems,
solving all the other problems we have, becomes so much easier.
And without it, you have no chance.
Thank you and Dr. Schütte.
I agree to everything what has been said so far.
If I may add just one angle, then it would be research on the human dimension.
That is, to understand how society works, how society is being kept together, how societies change and develop.
How do we understand the Arab Spring?
How do we understand how science can unfold under changed circumstances?
If we look at health research, if we build up new centres of health research in Africa,
just like we tried to attempt as a German government.
I had a long discussion with an anthropologist and he alerted me to the side effects
on Western intervention with regard to health research in African countries.
People go to the research centres to be treated for their individual diseases,
no matter whether that disease is related to the research which goes on in any particular case.
Why so?
Because the best equipment is there, the best people are there.
So to understand the dynamics of interference in order to then develop new schemes of collaboration,
which are more fruitful, more targeted.
It's worth the effort and to that extent, understanding the human dimension is a major challenge.
Thank you, and thank you all.
And the floor is now open.
There are two mics, so who's first?
We have a volunteer.
Just come forward and queue up for the mics and I'll alternate between the mics.
Should scientists be more political or do we achieve more by focusing on the science?
Who would like to have a go at that one?
When it's a term of how to legitimise science,
if I may first, without neglecting your question, follow up on Francoise Barre-Sinoussi.
And the question of how much money do we devote to applied research, et cetera.
Look beyond the politic rhetoric, look at facts and figures, for example we in Germany,
we invest about $120 million every year to CERN, the synchrotron in Geneva.
And it's not being fairly well-known, it's not being discussed publicly, it's just given.
And it's good that it is given, it's good that it's not being questioned,
and then there is political rhetoric about applications, about translation,
that's the new buzz word in heath research, and we do this as well.
But a sound and solid footing in basic research, blue sky research, is important.
And to that extent, should science be more political?
To some extent, yes.
If we design new research programmes as a funding agency,
which we are as a federal government in Germany, it's very particular...
We try to include a more general public in the very beginning because it is better to include
people early on in the finding research agendas
rather than creating results that are then later not being understood or not being accepted.
So to that extent, a politization of science would mean a more open dialogue on the side of science
and scientists themselves to interact and to make themselves understood.
So in this sense, science yes, should be more political
to make a claim and a cause for the public good to which researchers do contribute.
The problem with scientists is they're not very good politicians.
We have a very strict value system of not being able to nuance the truth.
That's considered to be a really bad thing to do and to outright lie, also useful political skill,
is really, really against what we're constructed as.
So in many respects, I think we come at a very big disadvantage.
One of our Laureates who's been here this week, Steven Chu, was the US Secretary of Energy
and you know, he is a particularly savvy and politically-aware Laureate.
As good as I know, period.
And you know, I think he did a good job as the Energy Secretary,
but it was also incredibly hard personally on him, as near as I could tell.
It's a very hard go, it's not for most of us.
If you want to be a politician, then I would say do it.
We need to communicate with policy makers and with politicians, but I think most scientists
will find it much easier being political by providing frank and fearless advice
directly within the political sphere rather than actually being political in the public sphere,
because I just don't think we're any good at it.
I actually wanted to say exactly that it depends what you mean by being political.
To me, I would say that first and foremost, scientists should be human, I'm not saying politicians
are not human, but...
One can debate that.
But they should be aware of their political scene, the landscape.
And they should be able to communicate with politicians because quite often, in many countries,
the politicians are the policy makers.
They are the ones that are pushing the money to go to science and so forth.
We should be able to speak their language and also to speak in a manner that they understand us,
which often the case is not.
But whether political in the sense that we should be politicians, my feeling is that I would rather be apolitical,
but at least being aware of the political scenes.
I would go also in the same direction.
The scientists should remain scientists, I totally agree with you, Brian.
We are very bad, very bad politicians.
However, the scientist is there to provide the evidences to the politician, to give advice.
And we have to make sure anyways, that the politician are following the advices of the scientists.
It's not always the case.
So it depends on your definition of being a politician.
And I agree with you, that sometimes, and that happened to me, you need to put pressure on the politician
in order for them to take the right decision.
This is also our responsibility in my opinion.
I would like to add to this, that maybe it's very important to have the dialogue
between scientists and politicians and we have so many wonderful technological tools to do that now.
I mean, if you go to a politician and show them a prototype or the kind of...
You know, a very virtual thing on the computer that shows how the world would look like
if you invest in this and this.
I think you will have very good cards to play with in this term.
So I think we are actually lucky and fortunate that we have this nowadays.
That's a very good point, yes.
Technology is expanding the ability to persuade politicians to invest in technology.
Geoffery, let me make just one remark.
We in Germany try currently, we talked about energy research as a major challenge, you mentioned it.
Germany embarks into a huge experiment to transform its energy supply system fundamentally.
And we engaged into a discussion with the representatives of energy research in Germany.
How to focus the research efforts on this huge, decade-long transformation and the first reaction was:
Who are you as politicians to tell us what to do?
So we said okay, we don't.
Start a discussion process within science, within the scientific field, how to focus,
how to collaborate, how to compete.
And one of the remarkable answers or input into the discussion was
by a scientist who said "out of the trillion questions which are out there with regard to energy research,
we as scientists have to make choices which are the most important ones".
And these are political choices, fundamentally political choices, in a certain societal setting like the one in Germany.
So even without political interference, decision-making within science is highly political.
Absolutely right.
The lady at the back mic.
Yes.
Thank you and I would like to draw your attention to the transgenic food.
I am working on plant biology and we do construct a transgenic plant.
The good news is that our transgenic rise had three-fold of production than the wild type
when grown in poor soil.
But the bad news is that no one dares to eat it.
So well, I believe we benefit from the transgenic food, both theoretically and practically,
but what should we do if you are not able to convince the government,
we're not able to convince the public?
So what should we do?
Shall we move forward and how do you think we could solve this problem?
Thank you.
Thank you, could I ask you which institution is doing this research?
Where are you working?
Plant biology.
Which institution in which country?
China.
Which institution is it?
Institution is the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Thank you very much, thank you.
Thank you.
Right, who would like to take that one on?
Well it's really similar of advocacy, it does not only happen in your field.
I mean, even in countries like UK, there was recently a problem with a vaccine:
people got scared of a vaccine because of rumour mongering.
And of course, uptake was gone completely.
The trouble with genetically modified food or organism, for that matter,
the field to many people especially in the civil society,
even if I may say, in the government sectors, to some extent is unclear in the sense that people are not...
they haven't made up their mind about that.
And to me, I'm pro.
To me, I think this is partly because we are not yet able
to convey the message properly to everybody so that they are behind this.
So it's a matter of advocates more than anything else.
And people are concerned about safety but is it real or is it a perception only?
I just wanted to interject a point because the reason I asked, sorry gone.
The reason I asked where you're working is I know this is a problem in the West
because we have these sort of like effete middle-class individuals who don't know anything.
Who think they're clever, they think they're better educated than they are.
And it's a real problem in Britain.
Who look at this genetically modified food and say "eek", and "eek" is almost exactly how they react to it.
I hadn't realised it was a problem in China as well.
Is it a problem in China?
Hello? It is?
Yes, okay, thank you thank you.
I just wanted to establish that.
Who would like to?
After you.
Well we have similar problems in Egypt, of course.
The thing is that we started some awareness programmes through the media, we have lots of media of course.
TV is not the only outreach possibility we have, we have lots of interaction with the young people at the schools.
So our outreach programmes always tackle children.
And so that the future generation would look better, or would have more awareness about things, what is going on.
Especially about scientific results, for sure.
Thank you.
Yeah, I mean the question of gene modification,
is really a global question that we have everywhere in the world.
In my country, in France, many years ago it was decided by the government
to apply what we call the principle of precaution.
That means, and this includes for a gene modification product,
it has been a lot of discussion regarding transgenic plants in my country, there's a lot of fights,
even between scientists and some of the politicians and ecologists and so on.
It turned out that for me, the best answer to that is really always the scientific evidences.
And for you as scientists, your role is to provide very, very strong data regarding safety,
especially from your own country.
My experience with working in different countries in
the world, if you arrive and this is true even for France, when you arrive to try to convince
and to make advocacy to policy makers, with data coming from US, from Canada, from Asia,
and if you are speaking to any decision maker in Africa for example,
he will say that we don't have data from our country.
So it's really critical to accumulate very, very, very strong
scientific data to convince the decision maker.
Anybody else want to?
I think at the heart of this, there is some confusion about the safety.
But there's also, I think, an over-riding, especially within Western nations
considerations about whether or not this is ethical.
And to many of us, we think it's ethical but other people say well, you're mixing things
that haven't occurred in nature into nature, you can't control it.
But what we think's acceptable changes dramatically over time.
60 years ago, the way we treated women is very different than the way we treat them now
and it varies a lot over the world.
I think from a scientist point of view, you need to provide the best information,
as Francoise just said, because we may need this, you know it may not become an ethical question.
People are starving to death because of food shortages, we're going to need that rice to make sure
people don't starve to death and my experience is when people are going to die,
their views of the ethics of a given issue change dramatically.
I chaired a number of round table discussions on GMOs in Germany and it's a matter of focus.
One round table focused on food supply for a growing world population.
How do we feed nine billion people in the near future?
And there was general consensus that we have to use all methods of breeding and plan development, no question.
The next session was on security regulation for open field trials of GMOs.
Huge debate, scientific evidence on all sides.
As a matter of fact, we can look back in Germany on more than 10 years
of security research with regard to GMO and the general outcome was that there is
no clear evidence that open fields trials are really dangerous.
However, opponents say that it was the wrong focus.
One has to take a more systemic approach and a more systemic approach is even more complex
and more difficult to measure, more difficult with regard to cause and effect measurement.
So it ends up in limbo, and it's not the politicians alone who are then
for or against GMOs, at least in Germany and other European or Western societies.
It is, to a large extent, a reflection also on public opinion.
And in Germany, we finally decided that we can no longer act against
this public sentiment, no matter how reasonable or unreasonable it is.
We, to some extent, gave in.
And a lot of GMO research left or is about to leave Germany to go to other places.
The question remains:
How do we feed by the middle of this century, how do we feed nine billion people on this globe?
And we need all answers. So how do we organise science policy now?
We target our funding programmes on exactly this challenge.
How do we feed a growing world population?
And we leave it open to different technologies, so there are people who focus on
organic types of agriculture, who focus on a post-harvest losses,
they focus on delivery change within the global agricultural system to cure those deficiencies which are out there.
And there are others who continue to do basic research also on transgenic food.
We need all of it, I suppose.
Thank you.
Lady there.
I'm a physician.
Currently, I'm working at the stem cell research.
So my question is: Do the medicine really should keep on trying to make people live longer?
Making people live longer may make happy
pharma companies or their families, but does it really help the mankind to be better?
Right, who wants to take that little hand grenade on?
If I may make a start, it's not a matter of whether we want it or not.
It is a fact. There is a Max Planck Institute for demographic research on the Baltic Seashore
in Germany in Rostock and they collected data internationally,
from the middle of the 19th century until today and there is a linear increase of life expectancy
at least in the countries where data are available.
So it's not a matter of whether we want it or not, people will live longer and the head of this research institution,
a professor from Harvard University who now is in Germany,
he testified at the US Senate and got into a fight that he reported about five years ago
with the head of the statistical services in the United States because they predicted
that there would be a natural cap to life expectancy.
And then this person gave a presentation on how these predictions over time were continuously wrong.
Since the 1970s, people had predicted that there would be a natural cap and they always failed.
There is the linear increase, so the question is not whether we want it or not.
It's going to be effect, and to some extent, research contributes to it and we then have to
deal with the question: How do we make life livable if we live longer?
How do we treat neurodegenerative diseases?
How do we understand neurodegenerative diseases?
Why does Alzheimer's Disease occur mostly at a given age and not within young people?
Fundamental questions which we cannot answer today and we have to find answers.
Because in our hospital, we can keep our patients a little longer with all the devices,
which is very expensive.
Allthough a part of the world worry about food, we waste a lot of money
on stem cells, we live longer, that is possible, but it costs a lot.
Where is the limit that we can devote our resources to a single human being?
My question was that.
Probably depends how rich he is.
Who would like to take this one?
I was ready to first say that, of course as it was said, life expectancy is increasing today.
My concern is the quality of life.
This is a main issue and the respect of the dignity of people, people in life, especially at the end of their life,
they should be in the best condition to help them at the end of their life.
Your question now, it's a little bit more precise.
Where shall we redirect our funding somehow?
I think it's critical to have also progress in term of new therapy, like the one that you are working on
because in the future, I'm sure that the cost will decrease.
You are just thinking about what is the cost today
but we have to work on that in the future plus the fact I'm convinced that in the future,
we will make progress in personalised medicine that I mentioned before.
So that does not mean that you will have the same type of therapy for everyone with the same disease
and the cost will be reduced as well.
So we have to continue.
But you raised two issues there.
Although they were related, are a little bit different.
The first one is the question about ageing and it has been answered very well
that that comes with a cost as well, because you want to have as normal,
as healthy a life as possible however long you're going to live.
And that of course has got the cost on the society, on the government, and we have to be prepared for that as well.
But you also mentioned about the cost of keeping a particular person alive with devices.
To me, there's ethical questions, which is slightly different from the first one.
And of course, that will have to be answered within the society, within the ethics committee...
How do you value that?
I will have a problem with it, but who am I to judge, how does that community feel?
My comment on this is that even a single person's life is very valuable and I would ask
back how much money do we waste on wars.
Thank you, lady at the back mic.
Thank you.
So my question is it seems like the context of how we're discussing,
where do research funds get allocated so that we can benefit mankind,
is stuck within the box, that the current funding mechanisms that we have are going to continue
to be the funding mechanisms of the future.
And so I wonder if you might be willing to comment on how the science of the future will be funded.
Do you have any thoughts you'd like to interject?
Or do you just want to see what virgin soil produces?
One of the things that we're starting to see is an interest in crowd source funding
as something that's there but there's a lot of options... just in general.
Right, who wants to be first on that one?
You can, yes, absolutely.
The problem is scale.
So if you're going to Kickstart something, which is the crowd source way,
you can Kickstart, say I have an idea, you're going to raise some amount of money
and that's a useful way to get things started.
You have big philanthropists, you have Bill Gates, Bill and Melinda Gates going through
and putting a huge amount of money into Malaria research
but Bill will tell you that that's just the tip of the iceberg.
More money is being spent by governments.
He's just leveraging and trying to make sure that money is spent better and I think
he's doing a reasonable job.
Ultimately, governments have the ability to tax and to spend the money that the big problems require
and so I think you can leverage money and you can get efficiencies by these novel ideas
but the buck, I believe, will continue to stop with the government and I don't see that changing.
Anybody else?
That type of funding, as you said, is more stable, there is a certain type of latency.
And if you want to inject new ideas, indeed it's the philanthropists, it's the foundation world,
it's unconventional sources that build up ideas so they create a momentum and that they get
a later dimension to be publically funded.
So it's always in interplay between different types of sources.
Anybody else?
Just one point, I totally agree with what has been said.
The question I like to raise is of course, it would be government funding.
But how, it's another question, is the evaluation.
The evaluation of the project supported by the government.
I'm a little bit concerned for the future because it's international and it's not
related to specific country but the evaluation system that we have at international level today
seems to be not to facilitate the funding of very original risky projects that lead to discovery.
That's my concern.
How would you deal with that?
Massive government funding for science is a relatively recent thing.
It's basically since the second World War and my historical analysis is that during the war,
the allied governments and I think the German government as well
saw that throwing money at science and technology could deliver results and it became a model.
It didn't really exist before.
There wasn't really a huge amount of government money, even in the United States, put into research.
A lot of it was philanthropy.
And obviously, we have vastly more science now.
You couldn't support all the research that's done now on the basis of philanthropy.
But is it possible, just on an institutional basis, the way institutions emerge is that they start
with enthusiasts and this is what happened with government funding after the second World War.
You know, the people who were starting it, they really wanted to do it.
And then as all institutions, they get captured by bureaucrats and people are less willing to take risks.
Do you think that's a problem and do you think there's a way
that we could stir the pot to get rid of the bureaucrats and get back to the...
Yeah, I think the bureaucracy certainly is one of the barriers.
It's not the only one.
I think also the criteria that has been
used today to evaluate project by international expert of course, the expert are not really willing
to take too much risk themself when they evaluate a research programme or a grant application.
So I think it's very nice to have, and some institution are doing that,
is to call for small grant with risky projects for short period of time in order
to have preliminary data to be validated for a new concept or a new theory.
I think this is important for the future.
Please.
Well, I'm not terribly comfortable with this in the sense that quite a lot...
It's been that he who has the, who hires the piper pays for the tune.
So when governments fund research, do they take in
the wishes or the advice from the stakeholders, people in the science themselves?
Because these are the ones who sculptured the landscape.
And then when it comes to developing countries, almost 100% of their research
is funded from money outside rather than their own money. So how can they control their research field?
I believe there should be more crosstalking between the private funders,
governments, and the scientists themselves.
Thank you.
My experience is actually government's probably best place to do the risky,
because normally, philanthropy, occasionally they have crazy ideas they're willing to fund,
but normally, they really want to see a specific outcome.
The ERC programme has these things called starter grants
which provide young people with a lot of money and young people are where you're going to do kind of wild, new things.
They have the least to lose, they're not risk-averse.
Nobel Laureates are not risk-averse as well.
They're happy to go out and try anything.
But that's because of a completely different phenomenon.
So I think giving money to people based on some quality measure
rather than the project when they're young is a way to really mix things up,
and then to have lots of little grants for ideas that you try and you fail quickly is a good thing.
I think the ERC starter grant is about as good a programme as you're going to get.
Thank you. Sir?
Good afternoon.
I'm a medical student from India.
So I have two questions.
Firstly, as Herr Schütte said, they have a health advisory team when they make policies.
What all is considered?
Essentially, are the statistics of various diseases given more priority or is the opinion
of an influential expert given more priority?
Well, we relied on expert opinion but they use the data you refer to.
They looked at mortality and morbidity and these were the two bases for decisions.
A third criterion seems to be the costs which are being incurred within a given health security system.
That was also a criterion for a number of decisions we made.
Okay and secondly, as we are in an era of globalisation, so basically instead
of each country doing a lot of efforts in their own country for research
iin the health sector, should there be a more globalised approach or a global manifesto
to control various diseases in other countries also?
Should there be a teamwork for, like for example, infections and malnutrition in India?
Should there be more global manifesto?
For you, I should think.
Either, both or the pair of you.
Well, this is becoming more and more operational.
There is quite a lot of transnational research.
The programme that I lead is a problem between Europe and member states where money comes
from the European Union as well as individual member states to work together with Sub Saharan Africa
to work for HIV, TB, malaria, and neglected diseases, looking for drugs, vaccines, and so forth.
And also work with industry to try to leverage money, together with other funders like AIDS Foundation.
So this kind of theme of partnership is becoming popular but I'm sure it, we can do much better than that.
We can do more of this.
I have nothing to add, except that we can do better.
It progresses but we can certainly do better, can see many countries in the world including your country, India.
There is not enough coordination between the partners
that are working on a specific topic togetherin cooperation with your country, India, for example.
And it is true everywhere.
Thank you.
Thank you. Sir?
I hope you don't mind if I ask two questions but I want to direct one question directly at Minister Schütte.
Because it's kind of rare to have a captive politician, so to speak.
So the first thing is as you know, primate research provides actually a very critical animal model
for studying disease and basic science.
But in Europe, there's only one airline left, Air France, that provides transport of primates between labs.
This changes on and off, but it's a very controversial topic in society.
And I want to know if you believe the government could, in support of biomedical research,
take over the transport of animals in the interest of supporting science?
And I can hold off on my more general question or also ask it now.
Ask it now.
Okay, my other general question is actually based on a conversation
that I had here with another young scientist, that was wonderful.
I met someone who is a researcher in Botswana or from Botswana, she works in South Africa on HIV.
She told me approximately 30% of the population there is infected with HIV and she made the point
that we need the scientists.
These are the experts, the engaged people, the passionate people, to actually go out
and educate society, get out of the lab, because otherwise, people, they can take these medications
but they stop being compliant and then you have resistant HIV and things like this.
So my question to you is:
What is the best incentive to get scientists out of the lab and balance their lab work
and their successful career with working in the social or public sphere?
Thank you.
Thank you very much for your question.
As to the first one, at least we in Germany, we don't have a national airline so the government
does not run an airline except for military transport.
That would create an awkward image if we were to transport primates in military aeroplanes.
So it rather refers to a more general societal context on how do we deal with primate research.
Currently, there is a campaign against one individual researcher in the North of Germany
who is in full newspaper ads accused of doing primate research.
I consider this research of high importance
and at the same time, there is a necessity that science speaks up and speaks out.
The German scientific system is, or has been over the past three, four years
being discussed within Nature editorials, colleagues of yours.
And they refer to the British example where there was a huge and fierce and violent debate
between researchers and animal rights activists.
And the UK came up with a public debate and also a civil society answer to it,
and a police answer to it as well, a law enforcement answer to it.
And we have to engage on all of these levels in Germany but this includes and to some extent,
relates to the second part of your question, which I will then give to others to answer.
It relates to an obligation and the necessity that science starts and scientists start to engage
in a public debate to make a claim and a course for the type of research they do.
I think that's yours.
Yes, to the more general question, I would like to say that the answer lies actually in you.
You are the ones, the young scientists who can reach out.
We actually have lots of programmes running not only through the Global Young Academy,
but also through the National Young Academies in each country.
So why not collaborate with these academies and see what they offer in terms of outreach.
And particularly in South Africa, we have a National Young Academy there.
They are doing a fantastic job.
They are going to schools, they are educating students, they are really doing a fantastic job
in terms of telling the public what to do and what is good in terms of health for example.
And we have also the bigger picture from government or so.
We also support very much the fact that as I said before, we should go out and talk to people.
We have lots of campaigns and even I can also report on the German,
there is a very successful thing, the "Kinderuni", which is like a children's university,
for example at the Technical University of Munich.
They have fantastic professors teaching very young children what is it about science,
and how to educate the science in general.
Sorry, how would you incentivise this?
I know there are programmes and I believe in outreach.
I try to participate in them but times are tough.
How do you incentivise people to get out of the lab?
That's especially what I'd like to hear your opinion on.
If you really convey the message to them how useful it is also for their own careers.
The problem is, to be very frank, the assessment of a good researcher.
If we include this particular part in a CV, and not only focus on having big, good publications
in renowned journals with high impact factor, but also put into consideration
that a good scientist has to have good outreach and has to have societal impact,
then, I think, is a good incentive for them.
Even by creating an award, for example, or by creating something which is really pushing
people outside the lab in terms of "yeah, you have benefits to do that".
I like in fact to answer to both questions because you mentioned Air France
for the transportation of primate and it turns out that I am personally
very concerned about the future of use of primate in science.
Recently, the director of Air France, in France,
contacted several directors, presidents of scientific organisation in France to ask support because he has,
himself, a very big pressure to stop the transportation of any primate in the future.
So if we don't do something very rapidly now, even Air France will have to stop.
That's mean that will be a catastrophe to continue experimenting primates in Europe in the future.
What to do?
You mention the Associations of Defence for Animals.
My approach to that, and I, myself, went to Brussels several years ago
to make pressure on the parliament with the director of different institution in France
to speak with the deputy in the parliament about that.
Probably we will have to do the same again.
Probably again, as I suggested at the time, to call the activists, not only the association of patients,
to play a role as well and to write to the deputy in the parliament.
To write to the politician in order to say,
"Look, of course the Association for the Defence of Animal are very important,
but for us, we are human being, we need research on primate
otherwise, as human being affected by disease, we may die if there is no research on primate anymore."
So I think it's important to work together with the politicians, with the representatives of the civil society,
with the representatives of patients if we want really to continue on that area.
Second aspect regarding the incentive to have more scientists to work in different countries,
in particular, in resource limited countries.
I can give you the new recommendation and policy, at my institute, Pasteur Institute, with a new president
that we have since less than a year.
He decided first that every young scientist recruited at the Pasteur Institute now,
it is mandatory for them to spend at least three months in a resource limited setting.
It's mandatory otherwise, they will not be recruited.
I think it's very hard but I think you have to take at one point, this kind of decision.
Secondly, I totally agree with what you said regarding the evaluation of scientists.
We should not take into consideration only the publication, impact factor, h- index.
A scientist who has spent three months, six months, a year in a resource limited setting,
that should be taken into consideration as much as publishing in Cell or Science or Nature.
This is very important as an incentive for scientists.
Regarding what you mentioned, because you mentioned HIV in Botswana,
of course it's important, the implication of scientists are important for training, education.
But they are not the only one.
The scientist has to work together with the communities of patients.
They are the one who are the peer educators, they are the one that can play a very important role,
and there is success in many countries where the scientists are not anymore playing a role.
It is really the communities and the civil societies in those countries that organise themselves.
I'd just like to underline the last part.
HIV is not just a scientific problem.
Really, it's a societal problem, and it should mobilise the whole community,
the whole cadres from social scientists, clinicians, community leaders.
In fact, other individuals, like educators as well.
So it's a societal problem and in many countries that have approached it that way,
they are the ones that have good success in the control.
Thank you. Lady in the back.
Hi, my name is Sabine Gabrysch.
I am a medical doctor and epidemiologist researching on global health issues at Heidelberg University.
I think it's kind of easy to agree we should have all types of research
and we've been doing that but it's maybe a bit controversial when it's about money and how much is going where.
And I've found that a lot of times, we're putting a lot of money into the basic research part.
For example, on obesity, there's research on finding obesity genes.
Or on food security, we heard about golden rice and transgenic and so on,
but is the obesity pandemic and is the hunger in the world
really caused by a gene or by the lack of foods with diverse nutrients?
Not really, they're complex problems really that we need to solve.
And if we look at the different types that exist in health research
there's the basic lab research at the molecules, cellular level, then there's clinical research with patients,
and then there's population level research
which also includes the implementation research that Francoise mentioned.
We can have the nicest malaria drug.
If it doesn't get to the children in time, we have antibiotics, we've had them for ages,
still millions of children die from pneumonia because they don't get there in time.
And this kind of research looking more at the population level, at how do we deliver things,
that's neglected, there's not that much money going there.
And I think it's partly because the golden bullet thing is more sexy and appealing to people.
Oh, we find this one vaccine and every problem will be solved whereas the other thing is really messy.
And you've been mentioning, then they talk about complexity and nothing ever happens.
So it's not really a question I'm asking, it's more a comment and a challenge
to the young generation...
I was about to ask what your question was.
To kind of think about doing research in this more general kind.
Like human health is not just determined by the genes and so on.
We are social being, there's the ecosystems around us, and to develop methods and ways
to tackle those complex challenges we're facing on the planet, we need really the bright minds.
If they all go into the basic research because that's where the money is,
we're actually having a real problem on this planet, I think.
So anyone wants to comment on that?
Just maybe to the reason why I mentioned implementation research.
You're totally right and I think we have to keep in mind
that it could be excellent implementation research, excellency's not only basic research.
I totally agree with you on that.
However, we have also to continue basic research otherwise, it will not be implementation
research anymore in the future.
You're totally right and here is also much of a chicken and egg in the sense that there is some
funding for this, for instance from the global fund, but it is completely under utilised
because there are very few people who are expert in this field.
And the reason there are not many people expert in this field, exactly,
because there is very little money originally to start with.
But we have recognised at the programme we are running:
In fact, we're putting up grants, we call it, "for the sake of anything else",
to make it more sexy.
We're calling it Health Services Optimization Research.
In other words, if you've discovered a vaccine or you've discovered a drug: how do you best deliver it?
How do most cost effectively use it in the programme?
How do you convince the policy makers that this must be taken and scaled up?
Yes, it's becoming a field which people are paying attention to.
I hope next time we're in a congregation like this, we may have some presentation on the subject.
I will just note that within the field of applied research, you're really trying
to get something out either monetary or for humanity that has value to society.
And so it's a real challenge in this area to actually judge benefit versus the cost.
And implementation, you've talked about, is a huge factor of whether or not
what you're doing in applied makes sense.
If you have a great thing you can translate but then it costs $100 billion to deliver it,
it's not actually the right thing perhaps to do in applied research.
So I think it needs to be incorporated as part of the programmes that you are doing
and trying to do translational or applied research, it needs to be built into that framework.
I think it's also a matter of re-evaluation, to close the loop, do the basic research,
then the implementation, and then go back to the basic research.
See, how you can optimise the process.
And this closing the loop is always forgotten,
so I think in terms of talking about what is more important or how can we invest in that,
if we always try to go back and forth, I think this would answer a lot of questions.
Sir.
Good afternoon, I listened with great interest the comments you made regarding
whether scientists should become politicised, become politicians, essentially.
I understand the reluctance of scientists...
I mean scientists have a lot of patience in general with politicians and can't stand the intrigues of politics.
I fully understand that reluctance but in my country, where we scientists struggle,
we struggle a lot with our politicians who simply fail to understand the value of our work and I say to myself,
"Wouldn't it be much easier if we had more politicians with a scientific background, science graduates as politicians?"
Don't you think we should encourage
scientists to move into the political sphere so that you have more politicians who understand better
the value of science and the needs?
So to say, bridge the gap between politicians and the scientists?
I mean, we all agree that science communication is a must.
Aren't politicians masters of communication?
I don't know.
We had one extremely successful scientist politician in the United Kingdom, of course.
Margaret Thatcher.
And I believe you have one in Germany.
Yes.
So the answer is, if you're a scientist and you're passionate about politics
and you think you're going to do a good job, great, but you shouldn't
go out and do it because you think you must, but you don't really want to do it and you don't think you're good.
So like anything, you know, how do you pick a research project?
Something you're passionate about.
And if that research project is to try to influence politically the nation,
then go for it and you know, God help you is I guess the way I would look at is because it's really hard.
But some people do it and it is useful but I wouldn't be telling everyone here,
"You should think about doing this."
I would say if it's what naturally occurs to you that you want to do, then do it.
Let me just resonate what Brian said.
There is a 20th century sociologist from Germany, Max Weber, who reflected upon science
as a profession and politics as a profession and it's worthwhile to look at these two
brief articles, eight to 20 pages each, because they outline the differences between the two fields.
And then, it's a matter of motivation, it's a matter of individual passion,
and we also need people who can act at the interface between the two realms.
That is important.
If I might ask you, Minister, how do you think that the chances being a scientist
affects politics in Germany?
Well, it affects the politics with regard to a certain awareness
of what science policy is all about.
So it does not necessarily influence German international political stance, but a certain appreciation of scientific research
and adequate funding for science and education
that comes with this type of socialisation as a physicist in the early years and then turning into a politician.
But that's a very personal interpretation.
-: I suppose what I was trying to get at is... The question's motive was by what can ultimately,
what can politics do for science and I'm wondering if there's a reciprocal question.
What can science do for politics?
If you have, as a scientifically educated, scientifically literate individual,
will they approach politics in a way which is A, different, and B, useful?
Well it's hard to say because at least in Germany, quite a number of politicians have
a university education and so it's a certain type of rationality that comes into play
but it always mixes with certain individual and personal criteria but a certain sense of rationality,
a certain sense of analytical power is certainly helpful.
I agree with what everyone has said but just to add one point,
I remember one of former ministry of health, telling me one day,
"You know Francoise, if we call you to take a position as a minister, never take it.
Never take it because you can have much more power if you are outside."
And I think she was right.
Anyone else?
Lady down there, thank you.
I'm Alice Matemba, I'm from Zimbabwe.
I just want to ask a question about the issue about neglected diseases.
We talk about them a lot and I want you to reflect on the fact
that I think that diseases like diabetes or mental health are actually neglected diseases,
at least in developing countries.
And the second question is about how seriously you're considering supporting research
that takes into consideration that disease is not just about one condition,
that it's several factors that are involved, infections as well as you know, chronic or non-communicable diseases.
And in most cases, everybody is sort of like forced into either being in infectious disease research
or in non-infectious disease research.
How serious are we taking that as a problem?
And perhaps more support should be given into researching by combining the two, the two areas.
One for you, Charles, I think.
Yes, in real life, that's the case, there's no doubt about that.
I mean, I have known somebody who was an entomologist and says,
"I specialise on the left wing of the mosquito.
I don't know anything else, I don't know even how the right wing looks like."
It's that extreme.
I mean, in many of our countries in developing world, when you see a human being, it's like a pathology department.
They will have two, three, or four diseases, comorbidities, so I agree with you.
You have to look at the human being in totality, not just for one illness.
But unfortunately, the funding mechanism in many parts of the world, you have even,
even the activist group may have somebody who is working only on diabetes and that's how the system has been.
But in reality, we try as much as possible... For instance right now,
you're talking of HIV but I mean HIV and TB are so much intertwined
that you can't stop thinking of just looking one separately from the other.
Even in terms of the treatment.
The first remark about the so-called neglected diseases, in fact that's a very unfortunate,
misleading term but it's a term that has been used for advocacy, to try to bring attention.
We have some disease which in this reach of a government, which are the general funders don't care much about.
But neglected could mean anything.
I agree with you, right now, the non-communicable diseases is a real big epidemic waiting to happen
in many of our poor countries; diabetes, hypertension, other cardiovascular diseases.
So indeed, you are right.
Yes, you are totally right and it's one thing that we are trying, at least the HIV community as we call us.
When I say that, it's not only the scientists.
We are trying really to make advocacy,
to have more interaction between HIV and non HIV scientists or researchers in the world.
As the president of the International AIDS Society, it's really something that I'm trying to push.
It's not easy, it's not easy because there is some resistance among the HIV communities.
We have to fight that because I believe, strongly believe myself that we will be
more efficient if HIV or people working on communicable disease are working closer from people
working on non-communicable disease.
And this is a critical issue for the future, for the global health.
So it's really something that we have to push on the international level.
Sir.
Hello everyone, this is Monish from India.
I have two general question.
First of all, back in India, we were looking forward to the nuclear science
to solve our energy crisis but suddenly, Fukushima incident took place
and users started protesting, media started negative publicity.
So that fell off from the agenda of the general public.
I wanted to ask to the panel that what we as young scientists should do to restore the faith
of general public if - God forbid - such cases arises in future in any arena of science.
My second question is specific to Professor Bassioni.
You said that we should invest in young scientists.
I am coming from a developing country.
In India, particularly, there is a heavy investment
on young scientists but what is the general trend is that people after education,
they go to some green pasture abroad and settle there.
In my personal opinion, it is not helping the native country, which is investing the taxpayer's money.
What is your general advice to the young scientists who are presenting the meeting,
especially from the developing country?
Could we take the second question first, actually?
Advice to young scientists from developing countries.
This is a little bit difficult question because I can only narrate from my own experience.
Be flexible, I think this is the answer.
Flexibility is key. When you come back from abroad, you have all these kind of illusions
that you can continue on whatever you have learned or whatever you were studying.
And then you have suddenly this gap between what you have learned abroad
and then what the country actually gives you or offers you.
So I think if the government sees that, that you have potential and you want
to continue on what you are doing, then they would invest in you for sure.
I'm telling you that you just need to stick to it, okay.
but showing them, on the other hand, how beneficial it is in terms of application
because this is what actually the developing countries are all looking at right now.
It's difficult to say because when people stay abroad, we have this big problem of brain drain
inside your own country.
You want to keep the good potential inside your country and if you don't invest
in these young people, they will never come back.
So I still stick to my hypothesis.
If you invest in good, young scientists who come from abroad and give them the money,
give them the opportunity to develop in their own countries, then they would really do good.
Would you say that has to do with some application to the country?
So that means that those are doing basic sciences cannot afford to come back,
we come full circle to the discussion at which we started, that we should
invest in basic research or we should go for the life sciences.
I was thinking about a solution to that problem.
I did, like in the last 10 years after my PhD, I was always trying to raise,
to look for funds, to look for support by putting the application in the front
and then having two students on one project.
One who's really focused on application because he might be an engineer
or has some background of application; applied chemistry for example.
And then have another student who is doing the basic research so they can work together.
Always, as I said before, closing the loop.
One is doing the basics and one is doing the application but the funds come from the implementation part.
Okay, so this would be one possiblity.
The second possiblity is that if you have a collaboration abroad, then you can always go back and forth.
You stay there where you are, try to get funds for your research, go abroad,
do the basic research, come back again, and try to close the loop.
Is this answering your question?
Yeah, thank you.
And with regard to the first question, if I may rephrase it in order to check
whether I understood it correctly, your question was: What is the role of science
to communicate certain risks that are associated with certain technologies?
My advice would be provide evidence, make yourself understood, and contribute to an educated debate.
That is the most and best, which science can do.
But like the incident in Fukushima, that entirely pushed the issue of safety
but people forgot that it is for the benefit of mankind that the work has been going on.
I had interacted with many scientists from my country who are working in atomic energy
and they had a clear vision for how to sort out the energy shortage
but all of a sudden, everything boils down to zero.
So how do deal with that thing?
I think the answer is you don't build a reactor like that with a stupid design
in an earthquake zone next to a cost that's going to have a tsunami.
Absolutely, the fallout would be what it is.
Sorry, bad choice of words there, I mean political fallout.
But it's a cliché, but it's an accident waiting to happen, that reactor, it didn't tell you
anything fundamental about the safety or otherwise about nuclear power.
And if your nuclear programme is well designed, and India is not much of an earthquake zone,
you're not going to have those sorts of problems.
That's the message you need to get across.
But echoing, ultimately, society's going to make the decisions and so if it's nuclear power,
it's one thing but it could also be some virus strain that gets out of a lab
and kills a couple people and you stop everything in that area, which would cause huge damage to the world.
So you need to have this educated conversation.
You need to have government be willing to listen, but you have to help government
convince people of what the right answer is.
On nuclear power, even if you look at the Laureates here, they'll be a fairly strong diversity of opinion
of the risks versus the benefits compared to other things and so it's a complicated problem.
But ultimately, you're at the mercy of what society thinks is reasonable to do.
And if society in Europe decides you're not going to do primate research,
because they think it's just not ethical, even though the benefits are really good,
then you're not going to do primate research, it's just as simple as that
and you have to be in that conversation trying to promote your case and you may lose it.
But if you lose it, you're going to be doing something else.
Lady there.
Hello, my name is Lauren Wagner and I am a chemical biologist from the United States.
And one topic that I feel has been circulating around this meeting all week is the idea of expertise.
And here we are, we're celebrating the Nobel Laureates and ultimately,
these people are experts in their field.
But a conversation that we also keep having
is the complexity of the problems we're trying to address and the political implications of those problems,
the education that's necessary to implement technologies.
And it seems to me that we're considering a new type of expertise perhaps where people are diversifying
across multiple skillsets.
Should scientists also be politicians?
And should scientists become politicians or just be political?
Should we as scientists spend a year in a disadvantaged research area learning about that?
But perhaps not doing our research at the same pace we would otherwise?
And additionally, as a chemical biologist, my field is fundamentally split
between developing chemical tools and applying those to biological questions.
So what I am thinking about is what role expertise plays in solving humanity's big problems.
Collaboration, obviously, is a way to bring experts together but one thing
that we've talked about is the challenge that experts from disparate fields have in communicating.
Can scientists, as experts, communicate well with politicians as experts in their field?
So with these more system-wide challenges that we're addressing, implementation science,
for example, we obviously need new solutions.
And I think one of the things that the young scientists are thinking is,
"Should we become diverse in our skillset or should we become expert?"
And obviously one answer could be some people could be experts and some could become diverse.
But I think it sort of suggests that perhaps a new model is needed
for what it means to solve these big problems for humanity.
Are we doing humanity a disservice by diluting expertise, by spreading people across many skillsets?
Or are we really creating a new model by saying that expertise means something different than it did before?
And, will Nobel Prizes in the future be defined by a different type
of expertise than we've seen in the generation of excellent scientists here today?
Thank you, that's a very good question.
And it was actually one I was going to pose myself so you saved me the bother.
The modern society is very much based on a division of labour, on normal specialisation and a lot
of what we've been hearing today is you have to diversify.
So who would like to address that question?
Any of you?
You have to strike a balance somewhere.
Yes, you need a specialisation.
You need people to go into some of their fields much in depth but at the same time,
they shouldn't be completely out of touch.
Examples giving that I am the expert of the right eye so I can only treat you
when you come with an affliction of the right eye.
I can't do the left, I have to send you to somebody else.
So there is the need to specialise but at the same time, I believe that you should be able
to connect with your fellow scientists, with a community on other issues in general.
I hope I'm not sitting on the fence here.
Of course, I think we need expertise.
It's impossible not to work with expert.
But the best way to respond to the need is certainly to stimulate and to promote collaboration,
large collaboration, a network of collaboration with different expertise.
This is certainly... In my field, in the field of HIV, we have been doing quite well.
I am originally a basic scientist, I am originally a retrovirologist,
very specialised in retrovirology but I have learned to work with immunologists,
people expert in genetics, people expert in mathematical models, people expert in social science,
people expert in clinical research, implementation research, public health research, and we are learning a lot.
It's very rich to work in a diversity of networks like that so I will encourage, myself,
the networking; the networking of expert in the different area.
It's not easy.
It's not easy because the evaluation system is asking for leadership,
so this is an obstacle, especially for the young scientists that tell me when they say,
"Oh, you have to be included in a network, but how I will have the leadership in that case?"
I think it's still possible if you are the one who initiates the idea.
You will have the leadership and the idea if you are the one that established the network.
So it's possible, it's difficult, but we have to work in that direction in all the field, in my opinion.
So from my experience, the core of scientific progress
is through expertise, and it would be hard for me to recommend, except for very special individuals,
not to become an expert in something.
However, if you want to take together different fields,
you normally have catalysts who are very good at bridging between those fields.
You cannot expect everyone to be able to bridge into all the other fields and there are catalysts that form.
And they form typically because there will be a government programme and there's money available.
We want to solve this problem and those catalysts will naturally emerge from people
who have expertise in one of the nodes between those areas.
So I sort of look at this as a big marketplace.
It really is a giant marketplace.
There's money and young people are going to ultimately go where the money is
because they don't have a choice.
And you're going to go through and there are people who can do those in-betweens
but you don't need that many of them.
You need some.
But you mainly need to combine the expertise together.
And you know, you have to look for opportunities
and see if you're one of the people in one of the nodes that forms up but I wouldn't go out
and recommend people here, become a generalist, become really mediocre at everything
and there'll be a future for you.
I think that's actually guaranteeing there won't be.
Be good at something and then look for the opportunities to become good at several things.
And the last word to you.
Thank you.
Well, in this case, I would like to raise the question:
What is exactly defined by the area?
What is the area of expertise?
We are coming in the globalised world, we would say,
"What is nanotechnology? Where would you define this? Where would this come into expertise?"
So I think we need interdisciplinary research and I think this is also the theme
of next year's Nobel Laureate meetings so I think it's a very good choice
to have this kind of theme for next year.
Thank you.
I apologise to the remaining questioners.
It's one minute to one and at 1 o'clock, we close and everybody goes off to lunch.
I would love to thank the panellists.
Francoise, Charles, Ghada.
Brian, and Georg.
Georg, sorry, got it right this time.
Georg, Georg, no vowel at the end.
The only observation I would make is that the defining difference
between modernity and the ancient world I think is science.
And almost everything, not everything, but almost everything that makes us
more comfortable people, cleverer people in a sense, more knowledgeable certainly,
and gives us better lives than people 500, 1,000 years ago is about science.
And you are the future of that.
So go out and do more of it, benefit humanity some more.
And I hope that we will see at least some of you back here and I might see you in Stockholm
at the Nobel Prize ceremony at some point and then you will come back,
and tell the next generation what to do after that.
So applaud yourself because you are the future.
Thank you so much for coming.