Dream Big
Every academic
journal article begins
with a background,
explaining
what that study is
based on. In grant
applications, it is necessary to explain
the expected outcomes and
impact our research projects will
have. In these contexts, however,
we are used to thinking within our
fields of research: how the study
links to other studies in our own
field.
More and more often, though,
we are asked to place our humble
efforts into a wider context. Societal
impact is officially one of three
missions of our universities, and
thus we are often asked, what benefits
to the society at large might
our research project have. What
to do when someone asks you the
dreaded question: "That's interesting,
but what is your research for?"
One could react to the question as
academia often reacts to any inquiries
by outsiders: interpret the
mere existence of such uninformed
question as a sign of decline of our
civilization, and as lack of understanding
how basic, blue skies
research works. In these dire economical
times, this question might
even sound to us like it is coming
from a horde of Daleks from Doctor
Who, insisting that you explain!
EXPLAIN!! what you are
doing with their precious tax euros.
In contrast, I'd argue that we
should seize the opportunity and
try to give answering the question
a solid go. Let's be grateful that the
underlying assumption seems to
be that our research indeed does
have some wider relevance!
In my experience, "successful"
scholars seem to be able to answer
this question pretty well (causation,
if it exists here, might of course
flow in either direction). There is
a similarity to how students think
when choosing their thesis or assignment
topics. For rhetorical effect,
let's say there are two kinds of
students: those who are extremely pragmatic, and start their thinking
process from constraints and
resources (how many ECTS credits
do I get, am I busy with other
stuff, what do I already know a lot
about), and those, who are driven
by curiosity to find an answer to a
question they have been thinking
about, sometimes since deciding
to apply to the university. These
questions, along the lines of "how
music influences us", are of course
much too big and unwieldy to be
thesis topics, but for a teacher, it
is much more motivating to help a
"driven" student to narrow down
their question to something that is feasible than to try to encourage
nihilistic pragmatists to be more
ambitious and take at least some
risks with their projects.
In the end, both of our student
stereotypes might end up doing
projects that look relatively similar,
but for one of them, the project
represents another ticked box on
the path to graduation, while for
the other, it represents a small step
towards answering their Favourite
Question. One of the projects had
utility, the other served a purpose.
Similarly in our own research, it
is easy to be pragmatic and choose
research questions that we can
answer using the tools we already
have, or simply end up running
yet another incremental iteration
of the experiment we managed to
get funded last time. We might be
taking steps but are they leading
us anywhere? What is our research
for, again?
Let's make a deal. Let's agree to
never use the "science for it's own
sake" card. Instead of explaining that we are doing basic research
that has no applications as such,
let's conjure a vision of a better
future, where our efforts have
lead to applications, be they new
kinds of drugs, intelligent traffic,
efficient administration or honest
politicians. Dream big! Or, instead
of saying that the purpose of our
research in e.g. humanities is not
to generate applications, but to increase
our understanding of ourselves,
let's spin this into a vision:
what would our society look like if
we had a better understanding of
ourselves? Dream big!
Thinking along these lines is not
only a service to those who are interested
enough in our research to
be asking questions about it (and/
or eventually paying for it), it might
help ourselves to escape the gravity
of endless details and minutiae that
dominate the profession of doing
research, and allows us to dream.
As big as we like.
Tommi Himberg
Post-doctoral researcher
- Painetussa lehdessä sivu 20
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