How to find Big Science Questions

The second in a series of "How To" articles :-))

Here at ORNL we are pondering which Big Science Questions the National Lab should attack over the next years. Good question. National labs were invented for a big science question - the atomic bomb, are tailor made for problems involving big teams of scientists, and later started the Human Genome project.

What Next Then? "The Sustainable City"? "Personalized Medicine"? "Cancer Moonshot"? "Complexity Science"?

Here's how to find out what to do next:

(a) Send around an e-mail to all national lab employees, postdocs and students asking for a "Big Science Question" written in one sentence only.

(b) Get a committee to sift through them and select some to be expanded an sculpted.

(c) Pick one every year to get serious about.

That'll create a buzz around the place.

How to Run a Conference

I go to quite a lot of scientific conferences - maybe 10-15 per year - and they all tend to be in posh hotels with entry restricted to those able to find the registration fee, which normally is hundreds of dollars, and which pays for renting the conference room at the posh hotel, speaker travel, exorbitant cookies etc.

Sometimes there are not many people there. I remember once flying all the way over from France to Seattle to give a talk to about 10 people.  But many more than that would have been interested - its just that they were blocked by the gnashing costs.  A very recent conference I was at had trouble attracting enough attendees, even though I know dozens of young local scientists would have liked to attend.

So here's what to do (for some of the conferences, at least):

(a) stop holding conferences in posh hotels - hold them in university lecture halls.
(b) stop providing free meals
(c) stop providing free coffee and cookies
(d) stop funding speaker travel
(e) reduce the registration costs as the conference approaches if there are not enough attendees
(f) let in all students free

Then conferences would be what they really should be: a  transmission of passion and knowledge to an enthusiastic and inspired young audience.