Training researchers with managerial skills for roles in industry could, according to Giorgio Margaritondo, provide a boost for scientific education in Italy, while at the same time helping to foster innovation within firms. The way forward – he suggests – is to overhaul PhDs and strengthen the links between university research and industry, along the lines of what has happened in Switzerland in recent years.
Giorgio Margaritondo is Dean of Continuing Education and Full Professor of Physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), where he formerly served as Provost. Specializing in the fields of solid-state physics and x-ray spectroscopy and microscopy with synchrotron radiation, he has had over 660 research articles published in international journals.
How valuable a part of researcher training do you feel managerial skills are? And how crucial a role do such skills play in contributing to the award of a Nobel Prize, as in the case of the work done at CERN on the Higgs boson?
With regards to large research facilities, such as CERN, managerial skills are not only important but essential. Projects such as those succeed or fail based on factors that are often extraneous to research, and hinge on the optimal management of resources. Centers of that magnitude are like large companies. But good management practice is not just for large-scale operations – it should be adopted at all ends of the spectrum.
And here we come to one of the problems affecting the training of researchers in Italy, namely, the inability of academia to instill managerial skills such as, for example, those necessary for managing human resources, which are crucial in laboratories. Italy’s particular problem is with PhDs, which still train people for a profession – that is, academia – that has almost no outlets for their skills. In other countries, however, a doctorate guarantees a high standard of training that can be successfully utilized in industry. Of course, even in Italy there are examples of excellence that can serve as role models. One such instance is the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics, which I’ve never been attached so I can speak of it without any conflict of interest. The Institute has always stood for excellence, operating a great management system that’s not averse to promoting young people to positions of responsibility.
So where should the changes to PhDs start?
They should start with three things: firstly, there needs to be a different system for hiring doctoral students, taking a cue from overseas, where research groups are free to decide which PhD students to take on, while only the standard of research is controlled centrally. Then, there needs to be a greater link with the private labor market: it would be highly desirable – and I would say it should be almost obligatory – for students to undertake a period of research at an industrial laboratory. In fact, this is an ideal way of putting students in touch with companies interested in keeping them on and hiring them. Lastly, it is also important to introduce some training in managerial ability, providing students with crosscutting skills. For example, at EPFL, 50% of those who have earned a doctorate change jobs after five years, not because they are dissatisfied, but because anyone with a PhD wants to widen their career opportunities, and it’s their training that enables them to do so. In short, doctoral students shouldn’t limit themselves to being research apprentices, but should also set about becoming industry professionals.
Should it be universities who get the ball rolling on these changes, or industry, which in Italy is still disinclined to invest in innovation?
It’s chicken and egg. If people – say PhD students – go into industry with appropriate skills, then the vicious circle that many firms are caught up in can be broken. Businesses are made up of people, and changing the mentality of those who work in them will help make them more innovative. For this reason, interaction between universities and firms needs to cultivated through mechanisms such as industrial doctorate programs. Italy is lagging behind in this area by 1 or 2 generations compared to other European countries, and far more than that compared to the United States. A possible role model to follow would be Switzerland, which until around twenty years ago had similar problems to Italy today. Within the space of a few years, Swiss universities managed to reinvent themselves and become engines of growth, creating new jobs. As things stand now, we at EPFL are not only the largest research center in the Lausanne region, but also one of the key drivers of the local economy. To achieve this, however, it was necessary to open up to the private sector: 150 million Swiss francs of our 600-million-franc budget come from contributions in the form of donations and finance from companies and private individuals. What was at first seen as turning the university’s role on its head now creates high-value projects in various scientific fields.
But Italy is quite different to Switzerland. In your opinion, are there grounds for being optimistic about the prospects of revitalizing the Italian training and education system?
I tend to be optimistic, and I am so for specific reasons. Many young Italians come to EPFL, and there’s one key thing we notice: the high quality of human capital they represent. They attest to its existence – in abundance. This means that Italian upper secondary schools and universities are still fulfilling their job of teaching. It’s just a question of properly tapping into these skills. Also, compared to 10 or 20 years ago, the length of time between making a discovery and developing it has been significantly shortened. This allows start-ups to get fast results. In Switzerland, we are seeing considerable progress on this front, but I think that the necessary conditions also exist for the creation of the same sort of virtuous cycle in Italy
