Advanced Instrumentation Support at Research Universities

I’ve been thinking lately about the various mechanisms that research institutions use to both acquire and then subsidize advanced instrumentation such as MRI’s, Mass Specs, or Two Photon Microscopes. Obviously there are the direct charges to research grants, but in practice, that may not be enough–especially when there are technician salaries, depreciation costs and service contracts to worry about. So here’s a bleg: how does your institution support such shared equipment? Are there cross-subsidies such as start-up packages?

High performing scientific organizations: the role of foment

One of the characteristics of excellence for a scientific organization is a steady increase over the years in the typical metrics for success (e.g. publications in high impact journals, sponsored research). Another as important characteristic is that excellent scientific organizations build and retain a culture of intense scientific interaction among and between P.I.’s, their trainees and students that at one level manifests as a collegial environment, but more importantly as a place of intense scientific foment. Scientific foment of the type, I’m describing, is to discovery as yeast is to sourdough bread.

So, how to create and sustain that scientific foment?

By experience, it’s become clear to me that first and foremost, there’s the necessary but not sufficient condition: a light-touch management style. Foment is a bottom-up process, and no amount of strategic planning can force it to happen. Deeply entrenched in the scientific DNA is a tendency to question authority along with a healthy skepticism of pronouncements from on high. Hence, simply telling investigators to go forth and foment hasn’t worked (to my knowledge) and is unlikely to be a successful approach.

Secondly, foment doesn’t arise in an environment that is overly burdened with bureaucratic concerns. Take the environment of a driver’s license exam office and you’ll likely not find the seeds of the next advance in cell biology. So an approach by management to actively decrease what is now arcanely termed “paperwork”, is likely to begin to set the initial conditions for success.

Thirdly, there must be a meritocratic culture. Rewards (of all kinds) ought to be meted out by management both for scientific success, but also for the taking of scientific risk–because the greatest scientific successes, always entail some significant amount of scientific risk. In other words, we are against rewarding the minimal publishable unit ramped-up, rather we reward distinct, identifiable discovery that’s made on the basis of experimental (in vivo, in vitro or in silico) research success.

Fourthly, scientific jargon, should be frowned upon–in general. I have lately become of the opinion that such jargon operates in some ways as the secret rituals of fraternities, to exclude those who haven’t been initiated. There are great opportunities for foment at the fracture zones between disciplines, where the important questions often haven’t been posed, much less tested experimentally. To have foment across the disciplinary fracture zones implies checking one’s jargon “heat” at the door.

Finally, none of this can happen if management lacks scientific credibility. Management, need not conduct the experiments, but management certainly needs to be part of the foment, at every step of the way. For an institute like ours, one with frontiers of exploration in domains ranging from molecular to human social behavior, there then must be a scholarly curiosity about many fields (not just one) from the leadership.

Networked Science

Diana Rhoten’s very perceptive piece in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education (on-line) really has it spot on about changes in the way science is being done here.

Money quote:

But Networked Science takes that idea a step further, using cyberinfrastructure to create a virtual hallway in which the doorways — wide enough to accommodate all the scientists who want to pass through — lead to labs and offices containing every discipline under the sun. By providing that space, unachievable in the physical world, being virtual can actually surpass being there.

Jim

Lines of authority

Lines of authority exist at universities and institutes almost in spite of the academic ideals that have long put professors at the top of the heap. Such lines of authority exist in order to create accountability–which may not have been de rigeur a century ago, but in today’s legal environment are a matter of institutional survival.

In other words: with authority comes accountability.

Many of us grew up with a famous bumper sticker which read “Question Authority!” and so the notion of respecting lines of accountability (and hence authority) comes fraught with cognitive dissonance. This is especially the case for the current generation of tenured full professors (many of whom came of age during the height of the 1960’s period of cultural change). For those of us on the faculty in this position, the temptation may be very high to ignore the established lines of authority at an institution. One classic methodology employed is the “end-around” (sounds like a football play) in which the professor goes around his direct report (eg. Department chair) and takes his or her petition to their boss (eg. the dean).

Bad move.

Not only does risk permanently alienating one’s boss, it also breaks the chain of accountability that is absolutely crucial to university/institutional function. If there is a break in the accountability chain then the entire organization is put at legal risk.

Jim