Scarlett O'Phelan, Carlos Giesecke, Modesto Montoya en homenaje al Ing.
Alberto Giesecke, presidente de la Academia Nacional de Ciencias
(26junio 2008)

Speech given by Prof. D. Van Dyck, on the occasion of his presentation as “Doctor Honoris Causa” at the “Universidad Nacional de Ingeniera”, Lima, Peru, June 10, 2008

The importance of research in universities

The world is moving towards a knowledge economy. And since knowledge is equal to power and also to wealth, the European Union has recognised the urgency to catch up with the US end Japan and to increase the research budget drastically.
In the framework of the Lisbon agreements in 2002 it was agreed that before 2010 Europe should increase the number of researchers by an extra 70000 and the budget for research and development to 3% of the gross national product (GNP), of which 2% should come from industry and 1% from the government. At present the EU budget amounts to 2%compared to the U.S.A. (3%) and Japan (3,3%).
Also China increases its research budget drastically by imposing foreign companies to invest also in local research in China.
We believe that the rest of the world will have to follow this trend, otherwise they will miss the train.

In order to meet the Lisbon angreements, the Flemish government agreed on an innovation pact with industry which aims at an increase of 17.000 researchers and an annual increase of the research budget by 10%.

What is the impact of this decision to the research in universities?

The funding of the universities from the ministry of education is stabilising, but at the same time the external research funding is continuously increasing.
For instance in 1998 90% of the total budget of the university of Antwerp came directly from the government and 10% from external funding, which is comparabe to the situation of UNI. Today the ratio is 60% to 40% (30% from funding agencies of Flemish government and EU and 10% from industry).  In a few years we expect the ratio to evolve to 40% resp 60% which is comparable to  the U.S.A. and which we expect to become the situation worldwide.
However since the external  funding is highly competitive, the universities are forced to develop a strong research policy. For this purpose the University of Antwerp has introduced the function of Vicerector for research in 2004 which since then resulted in a doubling of the external funding. This clearly demonstrates the need for a Vice-Rector for Resarch at UNI.

What kind of research should be done at the universities?

Some people believe that the research in engineering universities (especially in developing countries) should be preferentially applied, short term research.
I believe this is wrong and will prove my point:

1. in 1793 during the French revolution, France was ruled by the “terror regime” which closed the universities because they believed that these academic institutions  were not useful for people. On the contrary the regime created a number of engineering schools with a much more practical education. They even introduced the term “Civil Engineer” (engineer for the people) as opposed to the “Military Engineer”.  Even today these schools still exist.
2. in 1870 during the war between Germany and France, Germany proved to be technically superior. Imediately after the war, the French minister of education Victor Cousin was sent to Germany to investigate the reason fort this technical supremacy.   His conclusion was that the German concept of the university as conceptuated  by Von Humboldt was superior . The Von  Humboldt concept states that University teaching is  based on fundamental research and academic freedom . Indeed, fundamental reserch which is based on curiosity and on initiative of researcher turns out to be much more fruitfull in the long term
3. An example of curiosity-driven resaerch is the discoveryof electricity.:  “Electricity was not invented by improving the candle  (cit Claude Allègre)”. Itwas discovered by accident by Luigi Galvani during sectioning a frog , then profoundly studied by curiosity driven scientists such as Volta,Ohm, Oerstedt, Faraday and Maxwell. Only more than 100 years after the discover yit was finally put into practice by engineers like Edison, Tesla, Marconi.
4. Another example of the importance of basic researchcomes from the United Kingdom. During the 1980’s the UK  disposed of 45 universities  several of very high quality (Oxford, Cambridge, ...) and 80 colleges (mostly engineering schools).
   In the spitrit of the free market, Margaret thatcher opened the competition by promoting all engineering colleges to the status of university so that the total number became 125 . In the same spirit she opened also the competition for research funds . This was a negative experiment. Nearly none of the new engineering universities managed to win in this competition and the landscape consolidated in two categories: the research universities and the teaching universities.  Even worse: recent evaluation showed that even the quality of teaching in the research universities was superior. In my view the reason for this has to be sought in the Von Humboldt concept that basic  research is an ideal basis for academic teaching .

What is academic teaching today and what is the role of research?

The discussion is very relevant in my countryFlanders where the engineering schools are in the process of becoming academic faculties and the universities are asked to lead this process and to build op research.
We therefore are urged to reconsider the essence of academic teachinand the role of researchg as opposed to professional teaching. Is the Von Humboldt model still adequate  should it be updated to op to the present needs? In our view a professional education teaches the students to apply known knowledge (even at hight level) , to use well defined rules and to work within well defined boundaries. Teaching is then mainly transfer of knowledge and skills to applyit.  An academic education on the other hand also learns a student to relativate and  critisize knowledge,  to push the knowledge beyond the present boundaries, to  solve totally new problems and to stimulate creativity. The obvious way in which this can be done is when the professors are also professionally trained in generating new knowledge. They can generate this experience is by doing basic research. The best stimulus for research is personal ambition and curiosity. Therefore the topic of the research should be chosen  on his own initiativeand interest and thus  free and curiosity drive but this willbe compromised by the possibilities to attract funding. Since external funding is usually earmarked for research in special niches, it is the task of the university itself to guarante financialmeans for basic undirected research.
In this view basic research is the more a tool dan a goal on itself and every professor has to do research even if this is not at the international level sinhe stays in contact with the edge of science by attending conferences ,reading the recent literature and contributing himself to the field. This improves his way of teaching and brings the right attitudes over to the students.
Let us give a simple example. A professor in physics can teach the laws of Newton for mechanics out of a textbook and show examples of simple  applications such asa falling stone. But if he is a real scientist he will also discusshow Newton obtained his laws, his motivation and way of thinking to push the knowlegde,the validity of these laws and how they can be improved. And he can show applications in totally new fields such as theequilibrium system in the human head. Hetcan also stimulate the students by showing recent discoveries in astronomy and challenge them by unsolved problems.
If this research generates valuable discoveries it is the task of the university to valorisethem in patents and spin-off companies. But this is not the goal of the research itself. But successful valorisation van be a god motivation to atttract talented students.

What about innovation?

Innovation consists of a combination of knowledge, creativity and entrepeneurship.
The major drawback of the university education system  in Europe is the lack of entrepreneurial spirit . IndeedUniversity professors are not the best examples of entrepreneurs.
The main reason is the economicwealth and the democratisation of the education which makes that students choose for less difficult and more lucrative disciplines than exact sciences and the are not forced to take individual initiative but rather try to get a permanent job in the governemnt or a bank.

I believe that the situation in UNI is different.
The university has a strong group in materials scien andenthousiastic professors (M. Horn, W. Estrada, J. Rodriguez, M. Montoya).. However there is a lack of funding and no sophisticated instruments such as a modern electron microscope, which is essential for research in materials science,. This reduces the level of knowledge and has an impact on the quality of education as compared to the United States and Europe.
On the other hand UNI hasvery talented students who are creative and entrepreneurial.

Therefore we launched  a project to transfer knowledge from the University of Antwer, where the group in materials science is ofworld class, to UNI and set up an advanced Mater program as well as an advanced doctoral program.
Furthermore we also want to provide for electron microscopy instruments for training and acquire a new electron microscope for UNI. The goal should be to become a top level research group. It is the combination of UNI talent with UA experience that will make it work.