Science and politics… and scientists turned politicians

Prof. Artal, I need your advice, has a good scientist to avoid being in politics? Asuncion, Santiago, Chile.

This is a question I received nearly a year ago… and as usual, I am answering now, really quite late! But, this week’s visit of the Science minister of Spain to our laboratory (I will tell you some more on this visit at the end of this post), is a perfect excuse to answer Asuncion’s question. Cristina Garmendia, the Spanish minister of Science and Innovation was first a scientist, later an entrepreneur… and finally a politician in a high level office.

It is not uncommon to find high profile politicians with a previous scientific background and experience. Steven Chu, the current Secretary of Energy in the president Obama administration is a good example. After a quite successful career in science (with a Nobel Prize in Physics included), he ended in one of the highest political positions. In principle, even considering some exceptions like Dr. Chu, scientists are a rarity in high political positions in most countries (as you are aware most politicians are lawyers or businessmen). Javier Solana, during many years the European Union foreign affairs representative, was also a physicist. And, I have to say, that in my opinion, the low number of scientist in these positions is too bad. The typically well structured mind, and problem-solving orientation, of scientists should be quite useful to help solving the problems of a community, as good politicians. Several reasons can explain why scientists are so rare in politics. First, a career in science is very demanding and very long. We have to concentrate in our work and there is no much time for socializing or making important contacts. Second, most scientists actually love what they are doing and want to follow a clear path to understand some problems in their fields.

Of course, not everything is high level politics. I suppose Asuncion is referring to a possible position of science or academic administration. And this is different, since many scientists; typically in the final part of their careers accept management positions. This is normal, we need somebody to do that… and better having scientists dealing with science issues. If this type of responsibility is offered to you early in a career, you would need to consider many pros and cons... Your science activity will be severely reduced or even completely stopped. If you actually want to continue later as an active scientist, this could be extremely difficult. You could try to combine your lab with the administration job, but this is not always easy. A few years ago, I was offered to chair the Physics grants panel at the Spanish ministry of Science. I accepted the job (it was part-time) and I basically managed to keep my lab running. This experience, for a limited 3 years time, was positive, but I knew some other people that actually after taking that type of position never returned to the science (and of course this is not necessarily bad!). I also remember some friends when I was a PhD student, very active in the students unions, that they were not even able to finish their PhD. However, they used the unions networking to secure a political position.

Well, an answer to your question: if you are in the early stages of your career and your dream is to be a world-class scientist… you should concentrate in the science and avoid other distractions. And being involved in any sort of politics will be for sure a distraction! If you are in the mid part of your career… then, it depends. Life is long and doing different things can be good. Appropriately managed, you can keep your career successfully and even widening your connections would be helpful. At the end of your careers, you can be prepared to accept some administrative job and I think that can be good both for you personally and for the community.

…Spain science minister visited LOUM

Well, in fact, the minister went to Murcia last Monday to officially open a new University building for technology transfer located, not in our Espinardo Campus, but at the Technology Park in Fuente Alamo. Since our future spin-off company (Voptica SL) could eventually be located in that building, the university officials asked me to move one of our instruments there. We prepared a couple of our systems: the high resolution double-pass instrument and the adaptive optics binocular simulator http://pabloartal.blogspot.com/2009/08/binocular-adaptive-optics-simulator.html to be moved to the new building. The minister, together with all the other authorities, apparently followed my description of our lab, our main recent achievements and of course the instruments (see picture of the author explaining to the minister our adaptive optics visual simulator; while Guillermo Perez smiles from a distance...). Cristina Garmendia was nice enough to even try the binocular visual simulator. Her picture looking through the instrument was in the front pages of the local news papers next day! I hope in this case, politicians would remember later our technology and this could help us to get additional funds!  You have a recent description of the simulator in our recent paper:

http://lo.um.es/publications/PDFs_main/OL_AO_binocular_sep09.pdf

I would like also to share with you some useful information: The meeting “Engineering the Eye III” (organized by David Williams from the University of Rochester, Chris Dainty from NIU Galway  and myself) will be held in Besnasque (the Spanish (Aragon) Pyrenees) from 9 to 13 June 2011.  SAVE the date!!! It will be a unique event!

http://benasque.org/general/cgi-bin/years.pl?ano=2011

And finally, Omi (my dog)… and Michelin-star “La Cabaña” restaurant

Since some readers ask me often about Omi, my dog... here you have a recent picture. (Yes it is getting bigger). 

And I am happy to tell you that one of my favorite restaurants in Murcia: La Cabaña (yes, this time is an upscale place!) received one star Michelin award (the first for a Murcian restaurant). In my opinion, this is more than well deserved. It is a beautiful place, calm, excellent wine cellar and good innovative food... I have to say that this place is much better than many other Michelin star-rated restaurants I visited.  I hope they would keep the quality and... prices at least at the same level. If you are in the Murcia area, you should visit (it is just next to the main hospital “La Arrixaca” in the town of El Palmar, a few kilometers from Murcia city center). Congratulations to La Cabaña team and enjoy if you visit (by the way, it is only opened for lunch during the week days).