RESEARCH: We don't climb mountains to get to a particular destination – so why invest in science with a specific end in mind? In the joy of discovering the new, lies the thrill of discovering the undiscovered

WITH SO MANY problems on all sides, why should we expend resources and effort on studying what happened in the universe one billionth of a second after its creation or understanding how ants behave under stress? Who cares about the hyperfine atomic structure of a molecule so obscure no one even remembers its name?

Isn’t such research frivolous, when so many people are dying of disease, hundreds of millions are starving, the climate is heating dangerously and nations are on the verge of violent confrontation?

Why spend millions on issues that are irrelevant to our day-to-day problems? The answer is: Simple curiosity can lead us to useful discoveries. Consider George Mallory, who almost made it to the top of Mount Everest. When asked why he had tried to climb it, he replied, “because it’s there”.

Scientists are like mountain climbers. We want to understand nature because it is there. We relish the prospect of revealing mysteries and discovering uncharted wonders.

But here’s the thing – in satisfying our own urges, we can also benefit humanity. Considerable amounts of money are being invested in trying to discover new drugs, developing alternative energies to wean us off our dependence on oil, creating sophisticated systems that can destroy missiles in flight or zero in on an individual who acts suspiciously in a crowd.

Granted, these objectives are important and this is where most research money goes. A great deal of research and development takes place in industry, the private sector and government laboratories. This is conducted within restricted parameters and defined by strategic goals set by industrial and political leadership or driven by market needs.

If we put our money into this type of research only, if the path of science is guided solely by the needs of today, if we stick only to the straight and narrow, avoiding the steep climb to the top of Everest, we will have no tomorrow.

Why so? To answer this, we need to go back to the beginning of the last century. Most major technological and medical improvements of the past 100 years did not stem from discoveries by people working towards a strategic objective set by industry or political leadership. Nor were they seeking to answer a specific market need.

The laser, for instance, was not invented because we wanted to shoot missiles down from the sky, listen to high-quality music or watch DVDs in our dens. The structure of DNA was not discovered because we were aiming to cure disease. The transistor was not devised for the purpose of creating cell phones. Even the internet was not invented to enable teenagers to be in touch constantly or travellers to book airline tickets using their computers while at work.

None of these ideas, or any of 1,000 others, were discovered because we needed them. Nobody needed lasers, transistors or the internet. In the beginning, scientists had no idea what they were, what we could do with them or how they would eventually change our lives.

All of these things we now take for granted were discovered mainly because of the curiosity of people who desired to go where no one had gone before. These were scientists who had the freedom to think – and conduct laboratory research – merely for the sake of investigating the workings of nature.

Most of these discoveries were considered useless at the time, just as some current research results are judged irrelevant to today’s world.

Discoveries that arose from two simple phenomena – curiosity and freedom – have given birth to inventions that now drive high-tech, bio-tech, clean-tech and more. These areas provide millions of jobs around the world.

A prime example is JJ Thompson, discoverer of the electron. About 115 years ago, he gave a party at the University of Cambridge, where he famously raised a toast “to the useless electron”.

Useless? Can we even imagine our world, our technology, medicine and day-to-day life without the electron? But did anyone mandate the discovery of the electron? Was there a strategic plan for finding this basic particle?

If, as a society, the only research we are willing to support is that which we suppose will solve the problems we face today, our future will be limited to the horizon of our current understanding.

If we invest only in providing solutions to today’s urgent issues, such as cancer, global warming and defence, we will lose everything still unknown that we might discover.

We will never be able to sustain the amazing changes that curiosity-driven research has provided to human society. An important role, if not the most important role, of academic research is to provide new understanding, so that our horizons can expand.

As human beings, our curiosity is the most powerful engine of creativity when allowed to roam freely. It provokes us into providing answers to questions we cannot even conceive of asking today but which will provide unimaginable opportunities for tomorrow.

Albert Einstein did not describe the theory of relativity 100 years ago for the sake of those navigating foreign streets. Yet, without his theory, the GPS systems that guide us everywhere could not work today.

Yes, we want to go forth and try to understand nature simply “because it’s there”.

We cannot predict the impact of many of our discoveries. We cannot anticipate in which field humanity-changing discoveries will be made and we cannot foresee when these changes will take place.

Even so, the lessons of history show there are few more worthwhile investments and even fewer that reward us with such huge leverage.

Such research cannot be controlled by strategic planning and political vision, and there are risks involved. But management of such an investment is possible – even simple.

Wherever there is academic excellence, even in fields that seem irrelevant to the needs of today, investment must be made, infrastructure provided and the freedom to think and investigate defended.

There is ample evidence that academic excellence can be recognised and managed by the existing mechanisms of independent and peer review. It must be realised, however, that scientific management involves more than transparency and accountability.

In an academic environment, it is not true that only that which can be measured can be optimised.

Today’s academic research provides the fuel for the technology and medicine of tomorrow. To preserve this vital force, we must provide funding for excellent individuals to do research in seemingly esoteric fields, even if it seems once in a while that they use public money to pursue subjects that appear to be of interest to themselves alone.

There is no question that it will pay off in the end. The leverage is huge and the price is cheap, considering the return. Curiosity can make the difference.

Daniel Zajfman is president of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel