Physics researchers must look forward and pursue new areas
(7th November, 2012)
“The standard of physics research in Finland is high and covers most international lines of inquiry,” says Professor Christian Enss, Chairman of the evaluation panel of physics research in Finland. However, it is important for physics research to reinvent itself and to pursue new emerging fields.
“Most international trends of physics research are well represented in Finland, and research topics are driven by researchers’ own interests and curiosity. This is important because people work most effectively when they can work with subjects that interest them,” says Professor Christian Enss, Chairman of the evaluation panel.
The evaluation of physics research in Finland took Professor Enss and his international colleagues to 30 research units across the country. Some of these units produce research of a very high quality and rank among the best international teams in their fields. These include the areas of nuclear physics, atmospheric physics, nanoscience and low-temperature physics research. “Overall, the quality of optics and photonics research is also very high, but on the other hand, the field is so fragmented that it is difficult to form a single centre of excellence.”
“It was interesting to see just how strong and effective the infrastructure for physics research is at many Finnish research units. Finland also makes an important contribution to CERN and many other European infrastructures,” Christian Enss observes.
In the future, it is important that funding is made available to support emerging new fields. Research funding agencies must seek to identify research fields with new developments and give them opportunities to grow. “At the national level, Finland should avoid building and supporting almost identical activities at different institutions, as the country is too small for that,” the panel observes in its report.
Satisfactory funding situation, but heavy administrative burden
The panel points out that the overall funding situation for physics at Finnish universities is quite good, although the proportion of competitive funding is too large when compared to that of core funding. Most units get their largest proportion of external funding from the Academy of Finland. In 2007, at the start of the five-year evaluation period, the proportion of core funding averaged about 50 per cent. By 2011, it had dropped to 37 per cent.
In practice, this has led to a situation where many units are highly successful in obtaining competitive funding, while others struggle to get sufficient support from their universities and from external sources. An increase in stable core funding, the panel continues, would allow for a bolder seizing of long-term opportunities in new fields of research.
“Society invests considerable sums of money in physics research and should therefore be interested in how research could be improved.”
“A common problem in Finnish research institutes is the lack of administrative support. It seems that researchers are placed under a huge administrative burden. The fact that funding is scattered and that researchers have to apply for funding from various different sources only adds to the need for administrative support,” Professor Enss says.
For example, Professor Enss says that the success rate for funding applications to the Academy is too low; it should be increased from the current figure of 17 per cent to 30 per cent. “As it is, chances of funding success are too random. Researchers have to write scores of funding applications to get even one approval, and that is a time-consuming process.”
Professor Enss believes that there are two possible solutions: either increase the funding pot available to the Academy, or fine tune the rules of funding calls. All in all, he considers it the right choice for the Academy to provide funding for scientific basic research, without the requirement of applications or business cooperation. “You should definitely maintain this policy!”
Driving up the popularity of physics
A Professor at the University of Heidelberg since 2004, Christian Enss has followed with growing concern the steady decline in the number of physics students in many European countries. “We must get young people interested in studying and researching physics. Modern society depends on evidence from the natural sciences, and we need a constant stream of new evidence in order to better our understanding of different sectors of society.”
Professor Enss is keen to point out that there is no shortage of jobs for young physics graduates. Those who go on to do a PhD will have plenty of job opportunities, not just in academia but in industry as well. “Physics research has very high societal impact. That was also made clear by the present evaluation. Universities provide students with the skills and competencies they will need in the workplace, but the evaluation showed that the results of basic physics research in Finland have also spawned many start-up companies.”
According to Enss, it is important for researchers to engage in public outreach at schools and to encourage young people to study and research physics. “We must show them that physics is interesting and that it can open up many job opportunities,” he says. He does his own bit, too: Professor Enss is founder of a company called Stella Nova Entertainment, which specialises in science education and communication.
For future physics researchers, his advice is to start out by studying as many different areas as possible in order to establish a solid knowledge foundation. “From there you can go to where your interests lead you and study your area of specialisation in more depth.”
The international panel conducting the evaluation of physics research in Finland was chaired by Professor Christian Enss. The other members of the panel were Professors Angela Bracco, Jörg Büchner, Franco Cacialli, Hans-Friedrich Graf, Ulf Karlsson, Finn Ravndal and Clare Yu.
The evaluation covered 30 physics research units in Finland: the focus was on the quality of their research, research environments and research infrastructures, funding and PhD training. The evaluation spanned the period from 2007 to 2011.
The final evaluation report is published in PDF format on the Academy’s website www.aka.fi/publicationseries.
Text: Riitta Tirronen
Photo: Anita Westerback