Analyse/Réflexion/Témoinage

LIST: a dangerous monopoly

One of the main reasons given by the government to merge both CRP Lippmann and CRP Tudor was to reach “critical mass” in research areas that were covered by both centres. Theoretically, it made sense, but left open the possibility of creating a monopoly, which is not necessarily a growth fostering situation. I cannot say for sure for the material sciences and IT departments, but as far as the environmental sciences at LIST are concerned, it has sadly turned out this way. There is within the ERIN management a extremely strong tendency to establish and expand its monopoly over environmental research, and after the disappearance of the two separate entities that were the CRPs, this is bad news. I will explain why.

Firstly, one has to understand that the energy propelling the ERIN management is at its core the

powerful desire to “make a career”, and NOT to do good and useful science. ERIN managers are obsessed with quantities (number of articles published by their group, H index, number of projects funded by competitive programs, number of PhD students enrolled, number of patents submitted, etc…) and as a consequence, they do not know how to recognise good work from useless and unoriginal rehashing (of for the cynics amongst them, they do know, but do not care). They will constantly talk about quality, but in their mouths, it is either an empty word actually expressing its very opposite (remember Orwell’s newspeak ? War is peace freedom is slavery ? Well, at LIST quality is mostly means shoddiness), or simply meaning something like orderliness. Now, since the quantities ERIN managers have adopted as their guide for “quality” are either relative to other individuals (H index) or imply one has to share a finite resource (funding programs), they have inevitably developed the habit to think that other scientists working in their field are menacing competitors. Ergo, they have to outgrow them in order first to “gain visibility” and finally to be the only one standing. In the article entitled “An eyewitness account of management fairness and open mindedness at LIST”, our colleague mentioned the analogy drawn by the head of the ERIN department between sumo fights and research. Well, as naive as it seems, this is exactly what he thinks science is about; a sumo match where only the victor is allowed to continue with his work. And this mentality has spread over the entire department. It surely played a part in the break up of the group that was described in the article “An eyewitness account of management fairness and open mindedness at LIST”, because that group was seen as a competitor. Note that essential elements of the scientific method such as the right (and necessity) to disagree with accepted scientific opinions or the right to explore without preconceived ideas as to the outcome and it use (“blue sky research”, as Mister Reinig likes to call it reproachfully) play no part at all in the ERIN culture. In fact, disagreeing is rather seen as heretical, among other things because it means you might see your manuscript refused for publication (and publishing something, anything is of course much more important than standing your ground when you disagree with a reviewer). And as far as blue sky research is concerned, pretending that what ERIN researchers do has direct relevance for society has become a reflex, even though most ERIN research is probably useless, even on the long term, because this constant pretending actually weakens the ability to grasp reality and recognise relevant scientific problems.

Let us summarise the situation. The head of department is convinced that science is about gathering exterior signs of “success” in terms of publication and funding, and judges group leaders by that criteria only. Group leaders either believe exactly the same, or if they do not, know that these signs will please the chief, and that pleasing the chief is essential to stay out of trouble (again, see the article “An eyewitness account of management fairness and open mindedness at LIST”). In parallel, the management’s ability to recognise dark areas in environmental sciences and design experiments accordingly is weak, because for years, their training has gone in an altogether different direction, namely in networking and pursuing strictly narrow academic research. The only real aim of all this is to increase the  reputation of ERIN for the selfish benefit of the managers (and in good orwellian fashion, they will of course say the opposite, that the mission of ERIN is to selflessly benefit society).

Since LIST is the sole RTO in Luxembourg, and ERIN the only environmental department after the merger, the country is left with a single overblown structure, managed poorly and with little feeling for fostering research avenues in environmental sciences that are truly relevant for Luxembourg, and constantly plagued by the need to cover up its structural deficiencies by pretending ad nauseum to be what it is not, namely an efficient, intelligent and scientifically sound institution.

How does one remedy to this problematic situation ? Maybe the Ministry of Research should reconsider whether some degree of diversity in the environmental research landscape was such a bad thing at the time of the CRPs Tudor and Lippmann. ERIN’s monopoly could be broken by creating a faculty of environmental science at university, this time making sure that this is about science rather than prestige.

Pablo N.