Unit/Center of excellence cannot exist without expertise
A week back we had an interesting seminar talk titled “How to Create the Center of Excellence in Research?” delivered by Jari Multisilta. In his research, prof. Multisilta tried to extract the characteristics of centers of research excellence. He claims that the most important value in such a center is the quality of the research, followed by the “aim to discover deep scientific knowledge”.
I expect that there are many research groups that strive for high quality and want to discover new things. They even value the “open and conversational atmosphere” as found from the interviews with the leaders of the centers of excellence. Think about edtech, all applies. So with respect to these conclusions, the talk was actually nothing new.
Yet, there was one attribute found that I think we shall in our future strive for, regardless we would like to become a center of excellence or not. That attribute is called proximity to and presence of experts, and my impression is has been a bit overlooked at the present department. It is very common, in our research group at least, that we embark on topics that nobody around is an expert in. Often, those topics do not build on anything done in past by the present members of our group. For those reasons, I think, we need experts to stay here with us. It is not enough we get a visitor for two days. It is not enough we go for conferences, though by far those were/are the greatest eye-openers for me. We need more experts. Otherwise, we will stay where we are, progressing slowly (and not surely).
Well Roman, my solution to the problem is to not stay here. My next big task in life is to find a place where I can work with experts on my topic and do post-doc time there no matter what. If the center of excellence doesn’t come to you, you go to the center of excellence.
I miss myself the talk that you are talking about in this post. However, I would like to leave my opinion. I think the “excellence” starts in each one of the researchers IF we are looking for that and that should be the first step to conquer. At least it is what I am trying to do and I am learning from you guys.
I agree that we need more experts around us, but also we need to keep on moving as Matti mentions. There is not perfect place in this world. There will be always challenges to resolve, and things we do not see perfect, even in recognized tradition Universities. I had been in different places and I can say that the “name” or long time reputation of one school, does not necessary imply that they have the best students. Yes, perhaps they have a long tradition and the best resources, but that is it, the people is what it makes the difference, the ideas and ways of thinking, the discussions and so on. It is the people!
With that what I want to say is, what I think it makes a difference is the environment, and the collaboration with other centers. But as I said, I am not the expert on this matter. But I know that nowadays is not smart to do the things complete isolated. On the other side, the learning process and to develop criticism is a personal activity and decision, which will not come alone without and effort independently of the location, what it needs its space and time. And each physical place offers different possibilities to develop different skills. Take the best of them, learn, help others, and keep on developing. While you are growing you help, directly or indirectly to the development of your surrounding.
If I have to wish something is yes, we need more experts I agree with you, but also more collaboration, which implies exchange some of our developing experts too, and to develop projects in common. Sharing openly paths and opening doors = keep on learning and keep on moving!
Carolina, maybe you have a separate post about how would you make the collaboration to happen and what exactly is the situation/problem now?
Regarding the rest of your comment, I think we have now good environment for newcomers and students at their intermediate phases (though there is still space for improvements), but I argue for having more of the top-level researchers.
I do not agree with your view that learning process is a personal activity, not at least entirely; though you might have meant that one has to be active. Including learning to become a researcher and to do science, learning has a strong social component that leads to development, and I see more experienced researchers as proxies to those stages. We could be discussing here hours about communities of practice….
Matti, it would be interesting to know what happens in minds of people who become aware of the ‘need to go for post-doc’ (or in general the need to find more experienced peers) and who at the same time cannot do such change. What kind of tension appears, how does the person deal with it, what compensating strategies they select or come up with, whether those strategies work…
Yeah I too think that such research would be interesting. A good topic for social or behavioral scientists, eh?