Excellence in scientific research

Prof. Ladislau Nagy

Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania

lnagy@phys.ubbcluj.ro

Outline

• The importance of scientific research in universities

• Evaluation of research• Financing of scientific research• Excellence in the Babes-Bolyai University

The importance of scientific research in universities

• In many countries the name University is used only for higher education institutions with an important scientific research activity

• Typically a university must offer doctoral studies• In Romania this is not regulated yet

– We have 56 state universities, and 50 private universities

– Many of the universities has no important research activity

The importance of scientific research in universities

• Why is research important for a high education institution?

• The goal of any high education is to educate students with creative thinking

• The best training for creative thinking is the scientific research

• Without a world-class scientific research of the teaching staff, students cannot get the education needed for an innovative, knowledge-based society

The importance of scientific research in universities

• One of the most known ranking of the universities (the Shanghai list) takes into account only results in scientific research

• Other rankings (Times, QS) have a more complex methodology, based also on surveys, but the result is mostly the same

Evaluation of research

• How to measure performance in scientific research?– Number and quality of publications– Citations– Attracted money

• Is this enough?• The ultimate reason for cultivating science should

be the practical application, resulting in improving life quality

• We know, that a large percentage of the published scientific papers will not have practical applications

• But how can we determine, which one will have?• Evaluation on the possible outcome is difficult

Can a society invest just in research with a certain, measurable benefit?

How effective is the goal oriented research?

• It may lead to results for the applied research, where the fundaments of the field are already known, and the goal is some improvement

• In case of fundamental research in most of the cases the results and their applicability is unpredictable

• Many scientists says, the curiosity driven research may lead to surprising applications, proven by the history of science and technology

Theodor Hansch, Nobel prize in physics 2005

- from his Nobel lecture -

Who should finance the scientific research?

• The situation for the applied research is more simple• Private companies are willing to do it, because the

benefit, profit and practical applications are predictable and close

• In the developed countries more than 50% of the sciencefunding is coming from the private companies

Funding of scientific research

What the private sector finances?

Funding of scientific research• What about the curiosity driven research?• The fundamental research is typically financed from

public money (government, funding agencies etc.)• Why should taxpayers pay for satisfying the

curiosity of some scientists?• Why should someone invest in scientific research, if

the only outcomes are just scientific papers?

Funding of scientific research

• In the US there are some voices, which are against the public funding of any scientific research

• They say, that exploring the Universe or finding the Higgs boson does not lead to “public good”

• Fortunately in the US and developed European and Asian countries the state funding of fundamental research is quite high

• In Romania the government does not give much importance for supporting science

• The research funding budget was cut to less then a half in 2009-10 because of the financial crisis

• There is a correlation between the academic results of fundamental science (number of published papers, citations) and the innovative effect of the produced science to the economy and public good (with some exceptions)

From The state and quality of scientific research in Finland– report By the Academy of Finland, 2009

• Science and technology policies in advanced countries have placed increasing focus in recent years on the requirements of efficiency and impact.

• From the same report of the Academy of Finland:

The impact framework

• University education and research is important in order to achieve the proposed impacts

• It would be desirable the support of university scientific research also by industry and private companies

• However, university research is typically financed by state

Excellence in the Babes-Bolyai University

• In fundamental research, based of scientific publications and attracted grant money, our university is the first in Romania

No of ISI articles, 2009

• (676 from Web of Science for BBU)

No. of research projects, 2009

Attracted funds in research projects, 2009

• However, on an international comparison we need important improvement of our scientific research

• We are not in the first 500 universities on the Shanghai ranking (between 600-700)

• Improvement is needed both in fundamental (no of papers, citations) and applied research (partnership with the industry)

Excellence in the Babes-Bolyai University

• In this year the BBU has launched the program for obtaining and establishing excellence in in several domains– excellent scientific research groups– excellent personalities– excellent bachelor programs– excellent master and PhD programs

Criteria for excellent scientific research groups

• Relevant publications (books, articles)• Patents• Organization of important conferences• Technological impact (funds attracted from the

industry)• Romanian and international graduate students• National and international awards

-> The University encourages beside the fundamental research also the applied research, with immediate financial benefit

• After the evaluation, there have been awarded excellence title to 32 research groups from the university

• By this excellence program we want to improve our fundamental and applied research also in international competition

Conclusion

• Scientific research should have measurable benefit to ‘public good’– However:

Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not

why we do it

Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate

Thank you for your attention