Industry Interest in Science or Science Interest in Industry?

Birute Miskiniene from the Lithuanian Ministry of Education and Research spoke to me and a group of university heads and education coordinators of the Baltic States yesterday (BOVA University). We were there to comment on the future strategy of collaboration of higher education between the Baltic States.
Miskiniene spoke about the future and the policy of education in Lithuania. She highlighted in bold and repeated over and over again was that universities and scientists had to be find a connection to the industry in every way (teaching, research, Ph.D.-students...)! The retorics was no longer a polite encouragement, but for once a specific political finger on the sore spot.

We see that everywhere now - it is being forced down on the education. But when listening to this (there was no oppotunity of asking questions) the feeling of dispair turned to optimism when I turned things on their head. I will explain.

The case in a nutshell:
Politicians and industry point of view.
They want bangs for their bucks! They thus think the best strategy is to combine academic work with industry in a total makeover of the academic world. The responsebility is put on the academic world as an obligation to feed the industry with useful products and tailored students for positions in the industry. I would say the logic makes sense practically a long way, if the academic world only produced engineers (and engineers are very useful people I think).

Academics point of view
Academics want to do science! Science is not product engineering! It is discovery! It is partly intuitive and spring from the freedom of pursuing ideas and understanding in depth! Bold risky ideas - test - fail/succeed. At best, science is a discipline guided by moral and ethics - and this often does not harmonize with dancing to the pipe of industry. The forced model makes it more difficult to pursue basic understanding of say the intestinal system of an animal, because they can only get money for drug design and testing by collaboration with the industry. The intellectual property rights is another tragedy of this shotgun marriage that further paralyze important information from benefiting people on a wider scale.   

But why is it scientists and the university has to chase industrial collaborators and funds? Why not the other way around?

The more I thought about this the crazier this seemed. I will here boldly claim that:

It is the industry and politicians lack of imagination and will to seek opportunities that stops them from taking advantage of basic research already being done - and there for the taking!

What am I talking about? Example:
Let us say I make a basic study of the most basic form of epidemiology: estimating how common a virus is in a population. Let us say I find it in 20% of the population where it cause illness in a modest 0.2% of the population. Especially children and immunocompromised people would be in danger. What could industry and politicians do with that knowledge if the really wished to make use of it?

• Diagnostic Laboratories - development of accurate methods to detect the disease and sell the diagnostics
• Doctors - Possibility to detect disease, avoid some deaths and reduce the days people have to be sick
• Population - More people diagnosed, treated, surviving, and prevented from infections = more working people.
• Politics - Showing awareness to health of the population. Meeting future international demands before they arrive (lowering costs for fast implementation).
• Food industry - If the food is transmitted by food, and they connect to voluntary control programs, or see the need to begin them (with government perhaps) to be able to safely export products that can transmit the disease. 
• Medical industry - higher sale of products for treatment of disease. New markets.
• Tourism - Documentation of a disease decline or raise is important to what people will eat or trust in the country. Avoiding getting a bad reputation for being a disease hub on the map by being proactive and giving accurate advice.
• Journalism - Misinterpretation of scientific information and misguiding the public (sorry, I really think these people do a lot of harm) - or perhaps in the future it may be possible: to educate the public soberly about relevant preventive measures.
• Insurance companies - Who are in the risk group? Does it influence work performance, death, personal risks?
• Schools and nurseries - how to prevent spread and detect symptoms before an outbreak.  
• Lawyers - well they are basically everywhere from rights, safety regulations, politics regulations, contracts etc.
• and so on...

Any of these examples of groups that could and would benefit from just looking into what universities are actually doing already in the name of science only requires a phone call from the group to the scientist saying: "Hey, we can use what you wrote in your article what would it cost to explore/present/write on aspect X?"
 
In my head, industry is there to know how ideas are sell-able and have to be pro-active. Scientists should (continue) to test ideas and concentrate on expanding their insight in depth in areas that would otherwise remain uncharted. Not the other way around.

Voting with a Green Frog - Renewable Energy in Estonia

Estonian Energy has launched a very interesting new initiative in the pursuit of being more green named Green Energy (Roheline Energia). Though the terms and conditions mainly is protection of the trademark (a green frog, thus the illustration) the actual idea is very good! 

This is the deal: You choose to buy electricity from Eesti Energia at a slightly higher price (example: heating package: 10.86 EUR/kwh daytime and 6.83 EUR/kwh night time Green Energy versus standard 9.92 EUR/kwh daytime and 5.79 EUR/kwh night time for the same package, 1st November 2011). For the 9-15% extra on the bill Eesti Energia obligate itself to provide this amount of energy to your household using renewable energy sources (not including the trick of including firewood in that equation):

4. ORGANISATION OF GREEN ENERGY SALES
4.1 The Seller sells to the Buyer Green Energy, which is electricity generated in the Republic of Estonia from wind and hydro energy. Where the local generation capacity fluctuates or changes the Seller may sell renewable energy from other sources or generated in other countries as Green Energy

4.2 If the sales of Green Energy exceed the volumes of wind and hydro energy generated and purchased, the Seller shall not sign any new Green Energy contracts until additional wind and hydro energy sources become available.

OK, so a company is (finally) making renewable energy and selling it - so what?

The great thing is that you, the consumer, can choose! Basically you get the chance to vote with your electrical bill how important this is to you (if you can afford it). To me this is a door opened by Eesti Energia to see what people want and sell it. Clever!

I think these initiatives could and should spread to other sectors too - give the consumer a choice. If the balance tilt in favor of the majority demanding Green Energy (or other trademarks) then the politicians might one day even put on the needed penalties on polluting energy sources and reverse the funding picture presented above.

Reinventing Science - From Journals to Open Science

Michael Nielsen gives a very nice historical overview on the culture of sharing scientific information at his TED presentation in Waterloo.

As also stated here in the blog, the scientist are generally not rewarded by sharing their information openly. This seems to be a main inhibitor for data and ideas reaching their full potential. The systems financing scientists are simply not geared to welcome sharing discoveries openly. Scientists "jobs" are basically to mass produce articles in quantity as it is a demand in many universities - not to let their ideas have sex with others and advance knowledge faster. This is also turned by the Scientific American in an article from October.

One of my favorite references on the failure of the reward system is Daniel Pinks summarizing of 50 years of research on the subject. And the result is deafening: rewards impair the cognitive abilities! Or, a carrot on a stick makes you dumber. 

Nielsen excel in his talk by making a sucker punch to the sceptics when describing how one of the greatest human monuments, The Human Genome Project. This effort would have been an absolute failure had the idea of Open Science not eventually been forced upon the researchers by grant providers. Researchers were simply too busy "doing science" (publishing) to have time to upload genome sequences. These sequences now uploaded and publicly accessible are feeding hundreds of new science projects just by existing.

It takes bravery, especially by young scientists, to openly embrace and promote Open Science (flattered). But we have to if we are to change the rewarding system of scientists so the scientific community (an others) can benefit openly by the research.

And to those who have not read the previous posts on Open Science I answer "no" in advance to the inevitable referring to journals as already embodying Open Science. Peer reviewed journals are not "open" even when offering the "Open Access" option! Open Access is restricted by people having enough finances to publish for everybody to access the publication. And rarely data sets follow a publication. 

Lots of work to be done!

Michael Nielsen on Open Science and his book on the subject Reinventing Science:

Open Scource Teaching Platforms - The Post-Gutenberg Era

Since my university joined the "University of Life"-wave it has kind of been in the cards that the language of teaching should be English and open to a wider group of international students. Higher education has since been continuously forced to find new sources of income to replace budget cuts. This it is difficult without compromising the integrity. Or as the engineer joke goes: "You can get the job done fast, cheap, and well done - but you can only choose two of the options!" This principle however evades quite a few management systems - and I suspect there could be a moral loophole to sort of get all 3 (such as thinning down the integrity).

One quite obvious movement towards meeting these budget cuts is that universities and even students put their heads and resources together across the borders to create the tools that are too heavy to design alone. The especially true for small universities like my own. Creating free teaching materials seems to be an powerful way of meeting both lecturers, students, and the universities limited resources.

Before I continue I wish to share a small anecdote from reality related to what I wrote previously: "Change must come through the barrel of a gun!" - when push comes to shove, the creative mind kicks in.
A female acquaintance working in the military as a programmer was invited to play a war game with the officers some years ago. She was put in charge of a country and set to handle the simulated conflicts. The officers were unaware that she was a very experienced role-player and played to win - with a twist. Before she won the war game she was presented with the dilemma: "Your motorized transports have stopped their progress due to unforeseen technical complications caused by weather conditions in the enemy territory." To this she answered her adviser: "My Brother, shoot one of the engineers and tell the rest they got one hour to solve the problem, or the next one will be shot. Continue to do so until the problem is solved! Live Magnolia, home of peace and harmony!"   
The will to survive is a hard point to argue with, regardless if it is your desire to breathe or your accumulated academic efforts.

So, what have people come up with to solve the designing of teaching materials in collaboration and openly accessible to students?

One well known platform is the Wikibooks, which I briefly mentioned previously. One critiqued element of this platform is that anyone can edit it. This can be considered a problem if you wish to ensure a specific integrity of the material - or there are specific points where the scientific community is polarized about ("creation" just to take an obvious one). Another problem is the static book-form of the material. The linear setup of a normal book is replicated in the Wikibooks. This can be a problem if you want to pick-and-choose elements for your specific course.

Recently I found the Connexions website through a presentation by Richard Baraniuk. This platform seems a bit more advanced for university teachings. It is also open-source and the material is creative commons. Students can read online or order books that are published on demand (thus 1/5 of the normal price of an education book). Writers can add material as modules which allow flexibility when teachers are putting together text material particularly for your course. And best of all, you can create a so called "lens" that fits your institution for quality control. The lens is a predefined peer-review process of people and institutions that checks the content of the material.

A final observation is that if we are to meet students where they learn today, not even reading is sufficient alone. Visualisation is imperative especially to children and especially now when we have a generation accustomed to have high density information taken visually.
Visual Learning Systems (AKA Kahn Academy) has taken this full step. Making the module based step by step learning from the lowest grades to high school/college. This is unfortunately a commercial platform so only the financially privileged can use it. Other sporadic initiatives are springing up globally, but still fairly unorganized. In Estonia, Chemicum is already working similar concepts in chemistry on its own (thanks Tõiv), but we need a way to build it in a modular form on an open platform. Frankly this is where the universities should be already -  an open source visual learning platform!

I think creating and using online education material, for free, is a necessary step for higher education. Also to attract students to the university. Educated mentors will still be needed. They need to free their hands from paper shuffling and do what they should do with the students - learn!
I love holding and reading books as the next geek, but in reality the era of books being the only source is already past. As written before this is also needed if we really wish to lift education in developing countries. This is the fastest and cheapest way to get the knowledge there!

Now I just hope our university will choose one, and just one, platform. Have spine to force it into action, educate its staff to use it and stick with it!   


Richard Baraniuk on open-source learning:

Where is the passion (in science and education)?

I recently had the pleasure to speak with one of my old course mates from university. He took the path of a high profiled career, working in several countries and continents under top-researchers in cutting edge micro-biology. I took a path of a different country too, but settled with a very modest income, work on my own a lot of the time, but with huge freedom to persue interesting subjects with relevance.


It was thus surprising to hear from him that he felt that his work was, indeed cutting edge and just what politicians and industry are singing about, but dull and unsatisfactory on the personal level due to the hollow feeling of: yes, this was interesting, but probably no living thing improved their life from those millions invested. I have been left with that question in my head too when reading high profiled articles: "OK, scientific approach, but so what?" But hearing the same coming from the horses mouth is interesting. Often I felt a bit off the track myself because my research often feels very low tech when I try to solve a practical problem or fill a large gap in the basic knowledge. I feel like I am slowing myself down since the top dogs scream for so called "cutting edge" research. As if complexity or more expensive studies per default makes better results.

I can not myself understand why I need to build a skyscraper with a hovercraft when the foundation is obviously missing and requires a shovel.

My friend and I began a discussion of how come it is that so few of us (molecular biologists) actually become researchers (only 5 to my knowledge of our group of our year.) What was it that made us want to become researchers?
It was not a specific course we could conclude. It was not because there was particular interested supervisors for our 2 year research project in the M.Sc. program. It was not the prospects of finding a dictated Ph.d.-project or an interesting job (those were bleak.) But it was our sense of "we can make a difference" and passionate teachers - THAT made a difference! Or in short just "passion!"

It seems so obvious but I was a bit surprised anyhow.

It is about individuals caring about what they do, and do it. 

It is because it is not what is in the universities or what is valued among research most places. No wonder the industry or society as a whole do not get problem solving academics if they are demotivated and basically looking for something else to do when they are finally through the university.

So, perhaps it is not very useful to measure in (number of) articles published, pages read, the skill to take written exams, and number of passed students per year. Perhaps students finding and trying to solve projects they care about within the frame of their education with motivated and flexible teachers would get different results.

Just an idea.  


I am at the point where I teach a bit.  Perhaps I can help breaking the cycle a bit by being an interested supervisor inspiring the next generation feeling they can make a difference. Gotta try!

One major funding agency that seems to have understood the above is Welcome Trust (UK) who states:

We believe passionately that breakthroughs emerge when the most talented researchers are given the resources and freedom they need to pursue their goals.

 In addition to funding people rather than projects they fully and openly support Open Access and data sharing of research as a policy! 

Bravo.

(I leave you with Black Eyed Peas similar question of do you practice what you teach: "Where is the Love?")

Open Source Ecology

Another amazing initiative relating to Open Science popped up on my radar this week.
 Marcin Jakubowski was as hardcore scientist as it gets with a Ph.D. in physics who had the courage of following his heart and redefine his purpose. From scarcity he had to experiment and design his own agricultural tools and machines to succeed in farming. He published his ideas and designs though the internet, attracting supporters for the idea.

Eventually the idea grew into a project, and the project into a purpose they named Open Source Ecology. Here they publish and continue to improve on a fixed set of machines needed to start and improve a sustainable village from scratch. They named this The Global Village Construction Set.

Why is this a really good idea?
Here are my 5 cents:
a) it is a powerful incentive to poor farmers in "third"- and "second"-world countries (and elsewhere) to upgrade and help themselves. Especially considering the combination with micro-loans like Kiva.
b) it gives a cheaper and real alternative to commercial products
c) considering point b) sustainability is a corner stone in the project, and thus incorporated into the design. It does not have to consider profit from gradual improvements, but start at the best and most efficient design.
d) it is a feedback process that allow users to return user knowledge and improve the design.
e) if gives "first"-world farmers a real alternative, who is in a constant race of becoming ever more efficient to scoop a little profit from repaying debt.
f) the idea is community based! Meaning responsibility and ownership of creating tools to sustain the community becomes a public privilege not a private industrial enterprise (but I can be too).
g) the design ideas on the drawing board are by no means just primitive tools (3D scanner, 3D printer, aluminum extractor, CNC circuit mill etc.). The group are serious when they aim at creating a kit that can make people get modern comforts.
h) the idea is to make the machines modular. Simple parts, easy to understand and exchange. This is a huge thing since an item is only good as long as it has spare parts and can be fixed, unlike most modern machines that requires special tools and mechanics - making them useless when placed on a savanna far from infrastructure.


I am proud of people like Jakubowski and his supporters! Especially because he is a scientist! To me they have succeeded in combining heart and mind into what needs to be done. I know "hero" is a strong word, but they are providing what the world really needs, not for fame or money (yes, they ask for volunteering donations). I do not claiming we all should follow this example, but giving it a thought would be healthy.

And you do not need to be a scientist to do a real noticeable difference! The Let's Do It campaign started in Estonia is a perfect example. Cleaning up a country from garbage in one day is certainly possible!  

Links:
Open Source Ecology
Open Source Ecology Wiki
Let's Do It World

Science based science based education (and work)

Recently my exposure to studies about how education, work, ideas, and a successful life seems to work studied by serious and recognized researchers, seems to me to collide head on with the basic university concept many in that field are currently dwelling in.

Most higher educations got it written down in their vision somewhere that the education should be "science based". For those not in this kind of environment that means teaching should continuously be up to date and backed up by relevant research. Scientists are also encouraged to be "inter-disciplinary" to "network" (especially to the industrial sector) and be goal orientated. Especially the last has become thé driver for what you are worth as a scientist or teacher and in many universities and release a bag of money every time a benchmark is met or a student graduate. Teachers have to measure and weigh every step the student takes to satisfy somebody in the administration.

But we are supposed to be guided by culminated scientific efforts to continuously excel our academic sanctuaries, right?

So, how come studies by people like Sugata Mitra can show education without teachers can work very well. That groups can be liquid and that less computers (sharing) increases learning?
I tested Prof. Mitras ideas in 3 groups of 4th year veterinary students last year. After a series of practical lectures on parasitology I told them "You got 1 hour to solve the problem: what is the 20% that causes 80% of parasitic problems in modern livestock farming? You can use any means of help, ask anybody, look anywhere, but you must work in groups. You can however change groups as you like." Most students acted like they were on a treasure hunt and were moving around on the campus a lot. And the discussions we had afterwards were amazing!

Daniel Pink gave me another blow to what I thought was acknowledged throughout the academic system: the classic carrot on a stick. Apparently if you actually study the science performed the last few decades the connection between incentive and cognitive skills shows the carrot on a stick basically makes you "dummer". The motivation for original ideas and performing them faster do not come from getting a reward!

Where do the good ideas come from? According to Steven Berlin Johnson good ideas come from groups with different backgrounds letting ideas have sex. Again - liquid networks. In his studies he credit the enlightenment to first coffee houses around 1650 where people could replace the dulling traditional beer-drinking with mental stimuli like coffee and tea in a mixed community of backgrounds. In short: the coffee table! Inter-disciplinary projects sprung from those tables.
If you ever been to a conference or a symposium, you probably know the real brainstorming is done in the breaks between presentations juggling you cup and papers. In my work place our best chance of a cup of coffee with colleagues is a small (newly renovated) room without windows, currently filled with plant seeds from some research group. My kids kinder garden have a more successful coffee club (no pun)! Where we are now basically everybody is isolated to their own room with their own ideas, and coffee.

And where do we normally get our own good ideas to share with others? At our work? No - everywhere but there apparently. According to Jason Fried we work much more intensively when not at work - mainly because we are not constantly disturbed by more or (frequently) less important interruptions that is to fill a work day. One of the great traps of the traditional work place is not how well or efficiently you can use your skills, but whether you fill a certain gap in time with your presence. But to be frank - does it really matter how much or when you work if what you do is really good?

Because, what makes us happy? According to Nic Marks groups research on what increasing well-being and happiness list the top 5 things: connecting (social relationships), being active (use body), taking time to take notice (be aware), keep learning (be curios), and to give (generosity).
Oddly enough it seems to support the other things written above. And it gets really curious when adding National Geographic writer Dan Buettners groups studies on what gives a long life: eat wisely (only 80% full, lots of plant), move (nudge yourself into physical activeness, less conveniences), have the right outlook (slow down, ikigai - find a sense of purpose), connect (family first, right tribe - don't surround yourself with negative people).

Many of the things that makes us happy and live long seems to overlap - and also move into what seems to work (tested) also in a work place like an university.

It makes you wonder if we couldn't do it better doesn't it?
 

Further reading

In vitro meat - is it progress or optimization?

 

Lots have been written about in vitro meat (meat cells artificially grown for the purpose of food consumption). Mostly the debate orbit the same topics as other new technologies entering our home: Is it safe? Would I use it? Do we need it? Will it be the answer to our problems (growing population, disease, global warming)? If it is good business, is there any way it is humanly possible to avoid it if you do not want it?

I would like to review this new technology from the standpoint of veterinary science and my personal opinion.

I think everyone can understand that we have gone through many steps in livestock production through the previous hundreds of years. And with the industrial revolution the intensity of the production has increased. And it keeps increasing, though problems increase with higher densities of animals, designed foods for maximal growth, animals outgrowing their environment and their carrying capacity, infertility, more diseases  to them and us, and so on. But why would a herd owner take on all those pains if a less industrialized production would lessen the headaches and improve the health (and often quality of the product)? 

Jared Diamonds gives a decent explanation to this in his book Collapse: optimize or perish. When in the business, and liking your job, you often have to invest to survive, at the same time increasing your dependence on having to continue. Since meat and milk prices have not followed the rest of the economic development, the farmer gets the same, while expenses increase - roughly said. The popular way of dealing with this is by optimizing in facilities and machinery to reduce the increasing production costs. It actually makes sense if you imagine yourself as the farmer desiring not to see his family investments and life work go down the drain.

But optimization has the dark side of not considering the animals as much more than a simple asset eventually. Output is all that matters when it comes down to regulations, quotas, and expenses. But problems with the animals (infertility, diseases, mortalities or culling due to unsatisfactory production, motoric disorders, behavioural disorders, stress and the list goes on) also lead to expenses either through treatment or losses through poorer performing animals. It is a ugly dilemma that does not seem to be turning around any time in sight. 

Some farmers try to break free of this maelstrom. Ecological and organic farming is one example.

But imagine how farming would look like if you want to keep optimizing your meat production! What if you could optimize it so far you could get rid of the animals, the large buildings, manure problems, diseases, army of staff... what would it look like? In vitro meat would not be a bad guess! 

But wouldn't we object? I don't think so. Some, off course. There will always be some who have a taste for quality and nutrition. But the average consumer in the supermarket has tasted lower and lower quality meat over the last decades, no. And the skill of knowing what is good meat is long lost in the generation shift. 

 

Thus, the question remains. Do you want to eat substitute meat? Not because it is the right thing to do, but because it is good for the industry. Unless you believe more industrial food needs to "save" a growing population (rather than distribute it fairly - to me a contradiction in terms), then I would call in vitro meat, the next thing in livestock optimization - goodbye animals. That said - it may still have many important roles in the future. Tissue growth will be medically incredibly important. And even food grown in a petri dish may have its purpose if we decide to reach for the stars or mine the depths of the oceans.    

I think the final remark to this should be a quote from a dark vision of the future, the movie Judge Dredd: 

"Eat recycled food. It's good for the environment and okay for you." 

Popular science sources

Meat grown in laboratory in world first, Telegraph, 29th November 2009.

Artificial Meat May Feed the Planet, Scientists Say, Fox News, 16th August 2010

In Vitro Meat, Wikipedia

Protocol Online - in virto meat

Selected articles

Effects of a combined mechanical stimulation protocol: Value for skeletal muscle tissue engineering.

Boonen et al.J Biomech. 2010, 43(8):1514-21.

Advanced maturation by electrical stimulation: Differences in response between C2C12 and primary muscle progenitor cells. Langelaan et al.J Tissue Eng Regen Med. 2010 (ahead of print)

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