SEB Bulletin March 2005
From the President's Desk
'There's no such thing as a free lunch' is the saying in the back of my mind as I compose this - and, yes, once again I am writing on a train, so our members who regard these letters as the President's travel memoirs will not be disappointed. But what has lunch got to with it? I am actually on my way to deliver a book manuscript, the results of the efforts of myself and of my two coauthors over the past nine months - a sort of three-way intellectual pregnancy! We will of course have a nice lunch as we discuss details of the publication schedule, but certainly after all the work, the lunch will not feel as if it is free. However, I am sure that we will think differently when the first royalty cheque comes in!
And this leads me to comment on academic publishing habits. Thirty or even twenty years ago, active scientists were, with the occasional exception, very happy to write chapters for edited books and even to write or edit their own books. In the UK at least, that is not so today. Writing books or chapters for books or contributions to published symposia is no longer an attractive proposition and the academic scientists who are willing to do so are rather rarer than they used to be. This has nothing to do with financial considerations: royalties, even if welcome, are rarely large and have not figured significantly in motivation to produce a book. It is actually difficult to know whether there is an overall reason for the decreasing interest in writing books, but in the UK it seems that it is not seen as a good career move for scientists, perhaps because books are not highly regarded in the regular Research Assessment Exercises. It is an interesting question as to whether RAEs have led to an improvement of the quality of academic science in the UK, but a number of other effects are clear. One of these is the change in publishing patterns, not only seen in respect to book publication, but also in focussing very strongly on 'highimpact' journals, a focus that favours the more fashionable research areas. Another effect results from the way that Funding Council allocations for research are linked to RAE ratings with a very steep gradient from grade to grade. This means that, as was apparent from the previous Bulletin, any departments except those gaining the very highest grade are in danger of closure or re-structuring. Please do not conclude from these comments that I oppose accountability in science. I do not, but I would prefer to see a much less centralised, less heavy-handed and much more flexible way of assessing research performance. I must also acknowledge, especially for our many readers outside the UK, that this paragraph has a rather 'UKcentric' flavour. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to know how the question of research quality is handled in other countries.
Returning to science itself, I was asked recently whether I would ever stop being a biologist, for example, when I retire. I am sure that many of our readers will agree with my answer: 'How can anyone ever stop being a biologist?' Even when we stop doing active research in the lab or field, the subject about which we in the SEB are 'passionate' is there all the time, whether it is those other members of our species or the vegetation cover of the distant hills or even the bacterium that caused the gastric upset after consuming a 'dodgy' kebab. And as well as being all around us, it occurs to me frequently that our science is also beautiful. Some of this beauty is seen, for example in the elegance of many of the new imaging techniques for investigating living cells but much of it lies within the biology itself. This occurs at different scales. One end is exemplified by the complex sets of interdependences in a rain-forest ecosystem or a coral reef. Towards the other end we see beauty in, for example, the intricate molecular mechanisms involved in controlling DNA replication, or in the almost incredible rotating turbine in the mitochondrial and chloroplastic ATP synthases.
This brings me to my final point. This is the last of my President's letters, although I will be writing a report for the Barcelona meeting. It has been a real privilege to serve the SEB during such exciting times, exciting both for the Society and for our science. I am handing on the Presidency to Roger Leigh who shares my vision for the SEB and for biology. He will do a great job. But please do not imagine that I will disappear from the scene. I remain passionate about biology; the SEB is a great organisation in which to express that passion.
John Bryant
President
