Julia T Scho The pandemic has been a challenge for almost everybody. Cancelled conferences, field trips, experiments, suspended research, travel and visa restrictions, bad job prospects and no childcare, are just some of the problems academics have faced since March. While the virus highlighted
Introduction Today’s Academy is highly internationalized, and mobility is one of its key features. Although it is expected that academics from all disciplines frequently travel around the globe in order to exchange knowledge and build up networks, in reality, not all researchers are equally mobile.
When I started the physics undergraduate program in Rwanda, I wanted to pursue experimental and applied sciences that would involve using research facilities to conduct top-level scientific research for tackling real-life problems. However, there were not always enough equipment and infrastructures available.
Vannevar Bush gave us the most consequential, imaginary conceptualization of a machine for research infrastructure for the 20th century (Memex) and was one of the prime movers in the creation of the National Science Foundation (NSF) – a superb, if flawed, administrative research infrastructure. Superb: blue sky research; flawed: in some areas it’s been invaded by people representing particular schools of research and excluding others.
How can crowdsourcing foster innovations in science? In general, the crowd’s diversity and the sheer number of (potential) contributors have been found to increase the likelihood of finding a novel solution (e.g., Jeppesen & Lakhani, 2010) and the chances of finding the best solution (e.g., Boudreau, Lacetera & Lakhani, 2011) to an innovation-relevant problem.
As the initiator of the movement “Scientists for future,” could you give us a “peek behind the scenes”: How did you come up with the idea and how did the concept evolve? Like many others, I was concerned by the slow progress of the sustainability agenda. That is, not just climate change, but also, for example, biodiversity loss, loss of soils, food security, and questions of human rights and justice.
You are offering workshops where researchers can learn how to achieve more impact with their work outside of academia. Why is this important? I have been providing training on knowledge translation, otherwise known as impact pathways, and research impact for the last five years to build the capacity of researchers and research support staff.
Why should prevention of power abuse and supervision conflicts be considered as a matter of good scientific practice? The application of good scientific practice aims to ensure that science is, without exception pursued in accordance with the highest standards of the respective scientific field. Thereby a sustainable evolution of the science ecosystem should be achieved and its credibility and reputation in society maintained.
Can ethics in science be global and why is this topic relevant currently? One of the main recurrent debates in the Global Ethics research team (GEST) has been whether ethics can be at all “global”. My opinion is that not only it could but it should. Notwithstanding the significant differences that we easily witness in cultural, social norms and behaviour, we are faced with a strongly interconnected and interdependent world.
Doing research and getting paid for it is fantastic, but how to do that sustainably and maintain the interest of research funders? Even funders themselves cannot give a definite answer, but some trends can be pointed out. Admittedly, there are still universities and academic systems where nepotism and feudal-like arrangements rule, and the points made here do not concern them.
