European Dreams: Science in 2030

This is the first of a two part series in which John Wood, Chair of the European Research Area Board (ERAB) gives a personal assessment of how research needs to change and adapt to face the future. The first report of ERAB will be launched in Brussels on 6 October.

I dread the school holidays. Why? Because getting to the front entrance of Imperial College in South Kensington, London is a nightmare. It is on the same street as several museums, including the Science Museum, that are invaded by the hordes each vacation. The nearby underground station is packed with parents and grandparents herding their youngsters together. On the street I have to fight my way through crowds of people, all apparently happy to loiter around, and with time to spare.

What is it that is so fascinating about the history of science that attracts them? Playing with magnets, watching laser light shows, seeing how drugs are developed and marvelling at the ingenuity of engineers who built steam engines in the 19th century are all part of the experience that children look back on fondly in adult years.

But what will the science museums of the future record of the science of the present? Are we at the limit of what we can observe both in the space-time domain and in energy? Just what is ahead of these young people as they are wowed by the discoveries of yesteryear? What will research be like for them as they start their independent research careers in 2030, and how can those of us making decisions now affect them?

This is one of the roles of the European Research Area Board (ERAB). Our prime objective is to ensure that the research environment in Europe remains as fertile as in the recent past.

Build on diversity

The concept of Europe developing a unified science policy is an ambitious goal. The rich diversity of cultures and languages, combined with very different approaches to education and the financing of research should not be jettisoned in favour of dumbing everything down to the lowest common denominator. We need to build on this diversity and let the different cultures contribute together to build the future. It was this very diversity that was fostered in the days of Charlemagne and came to its head in the Renaissance. We need to learn from history, rather than starting with a blank sheet of paper. How to create a gourmet dish out of the mix of disciplines and approaches is the challenge for us all.

As a young research fellow in Cambridge I was free to conduct my own experiments and I would often decide what to do while walking to the laboratory. I might discuss it with colleagues, but generally I had an idea that I wished to pursue. The experiments and the analysis were difficult but I had mastered them during my PhD, and had read most of the major papers in my field. I was being invited to give reviews and keynote talks at international meetings.

Will this freedom still remain in the future?

While I am a great believer in the role and inspiration of the individual, much research in the future is going to be conducted in large international teams with many of the experiments and simulations being undertaken remotely. The research environment of the future will be much more like that which particle physicists and astronomers have created already. Yet there will be a difference, since this scenario will involve a mix of disciplines, including social scientists and philosophers, with little overlap between their knowledge bases – at least initially.

This raises the question of whether will we still train university students in single disciplines. While I detect little enthusiasm for moving away from investigating one area in depth, much more effort will be required to ensure that subject specialists can work in multidisciplinary teams: so that, for example, a mechanical engineer can work together with an environmental biologist, an expert on standards and a legislator. Only in this more holistic way will the challenges that face us now be resolved.

Today, there are very few teams that have the critical mass to look to at challenges such as climate change as a whole body problem. In fact, as the debate on climate change shows, there are even those that do not acknowledge the problem, and some of these doubters are in charge of finance. This underlines the need to have firm evidence-based research to inform political decision making in an objective way. Ill informed media, looking for a popular campaign, can turn a logical political decision into a vote looser in no time at all.

If I am to think of the environment for a researcher at the beginning of their independent career, what things will be different from my own experience? Has the day of the PhD passed, or will this qualification be updated? How will I become a member of a dispersed community, yet retain my own identity? What sort of issues I will have to face and how can the decision-makers in Europe assist?

Are Europe’s universities fit for 2030?

The first question ERAB asked itself is whether universities and publicly-funded research organisations as they are currently organised and run, are best suited for exploiting the new environment. The question for politicians is how best to fund whatever is needed without jeopardising a commitment to broad access to higher education.

There is a tension between the support of excellence and the need for a cohesive European society. When researchers are accessing resources all around the world, does it make sense to be identified with a single institution? It is already conceivable for molecular structure data to be elucidated remotely using NMRs in Japan, a neutron source in the US and an X-ray source in France. All these will be accessible, and possibly controlled, using dedicated electronic infrastructure. Indeed today, Imperial College has a dedicated link to Georgia Tech in the US, allowing researchers in London to operate equipment in real time in Atlanta.

As research infrastructures become more complex, the volume of data they generate is growing uncontrollably. For example, it is estimated that the European X-ray Free Electron Laser being built at DESY in Hamburg will unleash 100 times more data onto the Grid than the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. In fact, CERN releases relatively little data from LHC onto the Grid because it is pre-proccessed to screen out irrelevant ‘noise’. This will not be possible at the XFEL because of the wide range of disciplines and experiments that will be undertaken, from mechanisms of drug delivery, to fundamental investigations of superconductors.

Of course, the problem of the storage, curation and authentication of scientific data is the subject of much discussion. Who do we trust to keep the data safe and who decides on the way in which metadata is chosen? In the face of threats such as terrorism, protection of data from misuse is a high priority, and the problem will become more severe in the future.

The young researcher in 2030 will have to rely heavily on the work done by peers in different disciplines in various organisations around the world. However, in contrast to today, he or she might not even have to leave home to work, but rather will be constantly connected to labs in all corners of the planet through the virtual world. As today the general public can marvel at the results from the Hubble Space Telescope from their home PC, so this new world will enable the general public more access to living science. There is a great opportunity to engage the whole population in experiments and analysis.

Harnessing computer power

Coupled with the data explosion will be an ever-increasing power of super computers. In Europe there is a policy for a unified approach known as PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe). As we move into computation speeds of hundred of petaflops and beyond, the simulations undertaken will become ever more complex and difficult for reviewers to verify. A challenging tension will develop between capacity and capability. Large research infrastructures (both physical installations and large complex networks) will be spewing out data at enormous speeds, with simulations informing experiments, in a real time feed back situation. But how will this computing power be marshalled and controlled?

The European project Lifewatch is an excellent example of this emerging scenario. This infrastructure links structural biology with environmental sensing, from both land-based and space detectors coordinated by the European Space Agency. The data are processed at CERN, enabling biodiversity to be monitored and models developed for a sustainable environment, in order to inform policy and decision makers. This is an ambitious programme and the way it is conducted may well provide a model for the research environment of the future.

The challenges before us are well-known and include climate change, health in an aging population, and the long term effects of the current economic crisis. The biggest challenge is likely to be how to achieve a good quality of life for all people around the globe, and to do this in a sustainable manner. If we want to have even a remote chance of tackling these problems, we need creative scientists, working together in networks of excellence.

The role of the European Research Area

What role will the European Research Area will play in this global, interconnected world, in which researchers are more likely to meet virtually than face-to-face? Research will be as global as the challenges it tries to address. Purely national research will continue, but is currently ill-prepared for tackling global challenges. Initiatives such Joint Programming which seeks to encourage funding bodies in different Member States to pool resources, are to be encouraged. The first such initiative, which coordinates research in Alzheimer’s Disease is a potent example of this.

Europe has the opportunity to draw together a critical mass of research infrastructure and human capital. To achieve its full potential, the ERA of 2030 must be characterised by excellence, openness and innovation, interconnected with the rest of the world. In addition, science has to become a core part of European society and be owned by an informed citizenry that celebrates its achievements and understands how to sift out reliable evidence for policy decisions.

To counter the challenges we face, we have to concentrate on quality of research and allow excellence to flourish. The Europe Research Area should not be afraid of supporting and demanding excellence. However, the way in which excellence is identified and defined will change, depending on the sector and geography.

A distinction is necessary to delineate between world class excellent research and achieving European cohesion. The current European research programmes do not make this distinction clear enough, allowing politicians to claim that the concentration on excellence is unfair to countries with less-developed research infrastructures. If the whole of European has access to broadband then the demand for a more equitable distribution of physical facilities can be addressed. Indeed, there is a good argument for co-location of facilities in a few well-serviced hot spots. The creation of the Medicon Valley in Sweden is one such example.

(I would like to thank Jean-Claude Burgelman and Ulrike Uhlmann-Delaney for assistance in preparing this article.)

Part two, considering the role of the Internet in shaping the European Research Area, appeared on 23 September.

ScienceBusiness is rapporteur to ERAB.