Incentives for doing research

We humans are very curious about everything. As babies, we sample things with our mouth, we grab everything within reach, and as we grow older, we wander around touching, smelling everything around us, marveling at their colors and texture (sometimes delighting in the sound they make when we break them!). 

Scientists retain that curiosity throughout their lives. But scientists are not just curious, they also try to find an explanation for how and why things are the way they are. They do research.

What do scientists do research on? All sorts of stuff. They do some stuff simply because they are interesting, some stuff because they have practical use. Some scientists are curious about dinosaurs and other extinct organisms, some scientists are curious about stars and galaxies, some scientists are curious about what causes cancer and other diseases.

There is a truism that is often invoked: Every little bit counts. As the mathematicians tell us, even infinitesimals (vanishingly small quantities), if there is a very large number of them, can add up to a significant total. 

Every research result, even a failed experiment, contributes to the body of knowledge. How much does an individual research work contribute? Sometimes, that is not obvious. (So, sometimes, the research that is done by scientists is questioned.)

For example, what good does it do us to know how dinosaurs evolved? (I have no idea.) Or, for what purpose are we searching for other possibly inhabitable planets? For this one, futurists tell us that some billions of years from now the sun will expand and engulf Earth and we will have to be able to relocate. 

I, for one, feel that the research that scientists should be doing should mainly be relevant to the problems of the “here and now.”

We are afflicted with many diseases.  Many Filipinos die every year of cancer, heart disease, and various infectious diseases, to name a few. And many more who do not die outright suffer from debilitating conditions that handicap them for the rest of their lives. Shouldn’t our scientists be trying to solve those problems rather than those which have no direct bearing on the current Philippine situation? 

But what incentives are there for our scientists and other scientists in general to do research in the first place? One incentive is simply to satisfy their curiosity. Another is for prestige, which leads to good jobs, promotions, awards. Yet another is for monetary rewards. Better yet, all three!

A scientist gains prestige through publications that the rest of the scientific community considers significant. (The significance of a scientific publication is usually measured by the number of times it is cited by other scientists. Indeed, there are few things more depressing to scientists than to see their work being ignored by their peers.) 

A scientist could earn monetary rewards from work that has practical use. And often, especially these days, the work, or the idea behind it, is patented. If theft of the idea is feared, the work could be kept secret (not published, not even patented) and developed under wraps. The significance of the work is usually measured by success in the commercialization of products, or by the eagerness of commercial outfits to make use of the idea, whether patented or not. 

In many instances, patents are much more valuable than scientific publications. A prime example is the work of Thomas Edison, who had more than a thousand patents, but did not have a single publication to his name (to my knowledge). The ideas of Thomas Edison and the products resulting from those ideas are in great use to this day and will be far into the future. Another example is Steve Jobs, who had more than 300 patents and no publications (to my knowledge), and whose ideas are proving to be very useful to many of us. 

But whatever the incentive is for a scientist to do research, the result of the research will be valuable. Every result adds to the body of knowledge. Every little bit counts.

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Eduardo A. Padlan is a retired research scientist formerly with the US National Institutes of Health and is currently serving as an adjunct professor in the Marine Science Institute, UP Diliman. He is a corresponding member of the NAST.  He can be reached at [email protected].