I would like to introduce a new topic in this discussion. Let me know what
do you think about.
Nowadays I feel that administrative processes are flooding the research
work and practice. And this tendency is growing each year. We spend so much
time writing for projects that have very little probability to be awarded,
and the time consumption that is needed is very large (some time two or
three months of our 100% work time, or even more). I´ve been watching many
projects rejected in their first, second or third attempts, which are
extremely competitive, and where have been wasted a large amount of
creativity. Furthermore, in this kind of projects, like Marie Curie, ITN,
ERC, … you must show that your objectives are going to be successfully
reached. However, them must be extremely innovative and new, plenty of new
ideas and applications.
Sometimes this seems to me like if we asked to Faraday to develop a new
electric engine, before he can think on it. To ask him to develop a written
project to show that we is going to develop a new electric and magnetic
laws, and to show that he is going to make connections between light and
electromagnetic radiation.
To be honest, I don´t think that this kind of frustrating enterprises, like
ERC projects and so on, which waste huge quantity of creativity, and this
kind of "strange" protocols where you must show that you are going to be
successful in your research, and you must explain what are you going to
discover is helping a lot to the scientific practice. At least, not in my
opinion.
However, in fact, I feel many times that sci/art intersection works in an
opposite direction. This doesn´t means that art/sci practice is caotic, or
is not well administrated. In fact, it is. But, at least at the moment,
there are spaces to leave the creative process to be productive, to find
inputs from everywhere you want, and not to explain which products are you
going to develop, before you do it. So, this space opened to the innovation
practice is great to be "walked" being a scientist, where all the official
science work is plenty of bourocracy, wasting time, creativity and, for
instance, much of the time blocking new ideas.
In conclusion, art/sci scenario could help to the scientist guild to
recover this innovative space, which in many places is completely lost.
Best,
Guillermo.
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