Opinion: Nurturing ‘wild horses’ in science is a universal goal

Nobel laureate Harold Varmus, when appointed as director of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1993, said, “Science as a culture is fundamentally chaotic, ought to be chaotic. And, of course, government runs exactly the opposite way; it’s all ordered” (Science 1993, DOI: 10.1126/science.8248775). Varmus, who also claimed that “science cannot be governed and controlled by desk-bound planners and politicians,” appointed leading scientists to key positions at the NIH and oversaw its budget growth from about $10 billion to over $17 billion for the year 2000, thus securing the US global leadership position in biomedicine.

Irrespective of the type of regime they serve, authorities wish to control science and direct it to productive and useful avenues in order to benefit their country and justify government investments in research and development. Most administrators strongly believe that curiosity- and hypothesis-​driven research is a luxury and that applied science should always receive prioritized funding.

Similarly, farmers who still use horses would prefer a tamed workhorse over a wild free-roaming mustang. Hardworking scientists busy with applied research accomplish a great deal, but such “workhorses” rarely get a Nobel Prize. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Karolinska Institute tend to recognize curiosity-driven “wild mustangs.”

Innovative, disruptive science does not come from incremental, planned research but from unpredictable observations.

It is a human weakness to assume that the future will be an improved version of the past. For the 1900 Paris Exposition, the German chocolate company Hildebrand developed a marketing campaign envisioning life in the year 2000. As part of the effort, the firm created a set of colorful postcards depicting what life might look like in the 21st century. A century later, the imaginings seem naive and mediocre: each postcard displayed a prediction based on the past, such as hybrids of a bicycle and a kite for personal air travel or of a steamship and a railroad to cross oceans. Similarly, most politicians and activists have consistently ignored the unforeseeable nature of science and technology, advocating for investments in current technologies to meet global challenges.

In my view, humanity faces six global challenges, each being a package of problems, including (1) atmospheric changes, (2) sustainable energy, (3) dwindling raw materials, (4) water scarcity and safety, (5) food security, and (6) public health. As history keeps teaching us, these global challenges will likely be met by novel future technologies that will come by chance, luck, and serendipity because science is unpredictable and information grows exponentially. That all six are inherently chemical in nature provides all chemists with unique responsibilities and opportunities.

Policymakers would do well to identify and prioritize the problems but refrain from determining how to solve them. The history-proven ways to meet challenges always start with gifted scientists inventing new technologies and then market forces sorting them out. Impatient politicians who wish to expedite the problem-solving process should therefore increase government investments in education at all levels, attract the young generation to science, and encourage talented scientists by funding their basic research.

Basic research benefits society in many ways that politicians should appreciate. Those benefits include fostering a culture of innovation, curiosity, and critical thinking; nurturing a skilled workforce of scientists, researchers, and innovators; boosting a country’s scientific capabilities and intellectual capital; and promoting international collaboration. All these lead to innovation, enhanced productivity, and economic growth.

Presidents of national chemical societies and leaders of IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) have often discussed these themes and have shared our limited success in convincing our governmental research funding agencies to expand support for basic science. To consolidate efforts, IUPAC established the Presidents’ Forum, a regular event at which presidents of national chemical societies can meet, exchange ideas, and discuss topics of common interest.

All readers are invited to send me proposed topics for discussion in the IUPAC’s Presidents’ Forum: ekeinan@iupac.org. For example, an issue for future discussion is the need to expand student enrollment in higher education chemistry programs. Many countries struggle to attract the young generation to science, and we must jointly examine potential mechanisms and collective modes of action to achieve this.

On Sept. 16, forum attendees unanimously agreed that basic research, driven by hypotheses and curiosity, is essential for meeting today’s global challenges. The assembly also decided that a collaborative environment across all countries and scientific disciplines is critical for basic research. The most significant breakthroughs often occur in collaborative spaces, which helps make the case for shared knowledge and collective effort. Accordingly, participants cosigned a proclamation to all governments to expand funding for basic chemical research.

Nurturing basic research is critical for our communities, societies, and economies, and all governments should recognize exploratory research as a high national priority. As researchers and educators, chemists worldwide should embrace the challenge and goal of fostering the next generation of wild horses.

Ehud Keinan is the Benno Gitter and Ilana Ben-Ami Professor of Chemistry at the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, and IUPAC president for 2024 and 2025. Keinan is also a public writer and activist on science education, higher education, and public policy on energy and the chemical industry.

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