The opening premise of discussions at this International Conference was that scientific research is crucial to innovation, understood as both the discovery of new facts, data, or laws of nature, as well as knowledge with a direct technological application. Indeed, technology provides an essential bridge between science and society. As a demonstration of this, the participants pointed to the limitless practical applications of the World Wide Web (which had its origins at CERN, based on the development of the internet), citing it as a case where the industrial spinoff has been enormous. This has in turn also fed back into scientific research itself, which now benefits greatly from the speed of dissemination of and access to data and findings. It was noted that the mechanisms of innovation have become progressively more diversified, with a definite growth in recent years in the importance of “big science“ with a view to maximizing the interaction between experts, disciplines and infrastructure. Notwithstanding this trend, it was felt that smaller research centers – and teams of often young researchers – capable of exploring particularly revolutionary ideas and theories continue to have a crucial role to play. Indeed, a certain element of risk was seen as necessary in order to advance science, whereas large-scale programs are prone to an excess of caution, not least because of the mechanisms used to evaluate proposals for the purposes of allocating resources.
The participants highlighted CERN as a case of scientific but also organizational and managerial excellence, with a fundamental engineering (and hence industrial) contribution that has had and will continue to have various technological spinoffs. It was widely agreed that this experience of open international collaboration, centered on a few European countries but with interaction on a virtually global scale, lends itself to being replicated in other fields beyond particle physics.
Clearly, the financial resources required for scientific research create a need for direct engagement with governments (so as to secure public funding but also political support for major projects) and the business world. It was suggested that even though there will be inevitable pressures in both cases, research should nevertheless be permitted a reasonable amount of latitude. In particular, research cannot be solely geared towards short-term results or products that are rapidly transferable to the market. Efforts at coordination with public institutions and private funders were deemed especially important when the experiments to be conducted call for large infrastructure, such as in the case of CERN, which demonstrates that careful management of resources is possible even if many partners are involved, so long as there is a strict emphasis on merit in hiring staff and choosing suppliers. It was stressed that despite the increasing difficulties in securing public funding, such resources remain essential, notably in the start-up phase of ambitious long-term projects. Indeed, although venture capital can enable even rather innovative lines of research to be developed, returns on investment cannot be guaranteed, particularly in respect of basic research. The participants thus concluded that the freedom of a science-based enterprise rests on having a mix of different sources of funding, and, no less importantly, on maintaining continuous interaction with society at large, spanning from political leaders and the media to the education sector and businesses (of all sizes). In this regard, it was considered crucial that the potential and limitations of science be conveyed as best as possible, with education systems also encouraged to play their part by raising the profile of science subjects.
