More worries, is there an end?

Scientists, Engineers, Research Scholars, Professors, PhD candidates, Masters students form the nucleus of our new research building called NSERL(Natural Science Engineering and Research Laboratory). Since I spend more than 60% of the time here, it makes up for an huge portion of my life.

As one would normally expect that the overall focus inside that building would be on learning, and advancing science and technology to a new level. Hmmm it's true to only some extent. The driving force here is not just learning BUT is mostly MONEY. Money dominates every discussion, every group meeting, every talk. This is quite ironic and I really feel sad to see this current state.

I really doubt if greatest scientists of all times like Einstein, Newton, Galileo, Shockley, Fermi, Edison, Plank(just to name a few) would have ever focussed on money more than their research. I think that they used to take pride in what they are doing and that was their biggest source of happiness and driving force to continue excelling. They were all very competitive and each wanting to outdo the other. Well this is all speculation from whatever little I read about them.

Here is how it works, believe me there is none you can blame. Its rare win-win model where everyone benefits. The big organizations or companies are looking to expand their R&D, and to do that in their premises could be very expensive, so they distribute their projects to different universities, where 50% of the money goes to the development of the university, portion of it goes the cost of equipments and materials required, and rest of it takes care of the salary of the students working on that project. Company, institution and students, all benefit from it big time. Its all good here, but for individual research groups to get these projects from industry is not that easy, and this demands a lot of proposal writing, lot of careful planning and being very smart in what technology you are working on.

If finding the money for the research you want to work on was easy, the focus would be totally on learning and expanding the knowledge, but the competitiveness of research grants shifts the focus totally from learning to earning. In this industry, few things sell at a time, for e.g the last decade saw an intense research activity on gate dielectrics, and there was a lot of money on that. So all started working on it, now it has shifted to organic electronics and most of the groups work on that. You might see some potential in a particular technology but if its not in line with the current areas of focus, no one will buy it. There is a grant called NSF(National Science Foundation), its a government grant and they distribute money for advancement of pure science, but such grants form less 5% of the total available.

This cut throat competition keeps everyone under tremendous pressure all the time. The professors are constantly writing proposals to maintain the flow of money, the students are trying their best to keep up their job, and industry is always in close fight with other industries. As a result you will find worried faces all around.

Established professors worried about living up to the expectations, new ones worried about expanding their research group. Some students just starting their research, worried about learning new things and making sure they do not make any mistakes, and trying to make an impression; some students close to finishing are worried about graduating and realizing so much still needs to be done, also worried about endlessly having to answer this qn ' when are you graduating'; the ones in the middle worried about not enjoying the research anymore as they realize that this is the not the project they eventually wanted, but now its too late to change. I have not even touched upon how taxing could be research in itself, and my beautiful 100 million $ research building is already under piles and piles of worries.

Research is another part which can be a huge source of worry in itself, as most of the times things do not go as planned. Because of so much emphasis on quick results, the basic approach to solving a problem is the engineering approach, or rather hit and trial based on previous knowledge and things we understand, wait wait wait, rather we think we understand. Well the science part plays its role, of course, but thats not the only way we approach to problems here.

Well I have already changed theme of this blog from money to worries as I kept writing, the title has already been changed from The World around me to More worries, is there an end? so I better stop here before I travel to another planet. Also the cafe I am at, is about to close.

Well most of the stuff that happens in this world gets related to money somehow, and this was no different.