Relighting the fire for science
Published: 12 Mar 2007 17:46 GMT
Europe's place in the new economy should be secure. With manufacturing and services sucked into the Far East by Adam Smith's invisible vacuum cleaner, we can look to our tradition as the home of the oldest, most revolutionary strands of scientific and technical thought. Of the 19 SI physical units that describe the universe, 18 are named after Europeans — the nineteenth, after a first-generation Scottish American. Basic discovery, creativity and invention are woven into our genes.
If only it were so. Even as Nokia sets up its Cambridge research lab, the company's complaining that suitable graduates are in short supply not only in the UK, but across Europe. It's not news close to home, where chemistry and physics departments in schools and universities are constantly under threat, and government reforms in education consistently fail to spark a renaissance.
Quite the opposite. Tertiary education is in a mess. Universities are financially dependent on pushing as many bodies through as they can and will stop at nothing to keep them on the books. Frustration and apathy among staff and students may not yet be the norm, but they're widespread. The revival won't come from there any time soon.
Industry must find ways to identify and encourage talent early. In the US, competitive science fairs create a lot of interest — not just among the uber-nerds who'd become solid-state physicists if they were brought up in a cave by wolves, but among the generally bright and ambitious. See it as a marketing challenge. Nokia in particular has had no problem flogging phones to the young. With its brand awareness and street cred, it is in an ideal position to get the word out and the brains in.
Falling out of love with science won't be cured by one company, no matter how well it sells the idea, and there are plenty of potential problems. It is an essential start. In the longer term, the time is ripe for a revival of the idea of apprenticeships, for more vocational options, for much better and earlier basic science and maths teaching in secondary, even primary education. But if we don't explain why all this matters, then it's all for nothing. That's not rocket science.
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