Raise researchers' profile, salaries: Nobel laureate

Erwida Maulia , The Jakarta Post , Tangerang | Wed, 03/05/2008 2:15 AM | Headlines

The 2005 Nobel Prize winner in medicine Barry J. Marshall (center) talks to the press in Karawaci in Tangerang on Tuesday.

If Indonesia wants to improve the quality of scientific research in the country, it should improve the salaries of scientists and elevate their profile, Nobel laureate Barry James Marshall says.

During a lecture here Tuesday, the Australian said Indonesia was in need of more research, especially in health sciences.

"Obviously, you can do something simple like raising the salaries, and everybody will want to do research. But, if you can't afford very high salaries, then you have to create happiness in the work with other ways," said Marshall, who won the Nobel Prize for medicine along with Australian pathologist Robin Warren in 2005.

"You can raise the value and the profile of science, and give some small respect to the scientists in the community. Then people will want to do science even if it's not a top paid job."

Marshall said if raising salaries was not an option, there still had to be ways for researchers to be able to make as much as people in top paid jobs. He suggested that Indonesia develops biotech or health companies, where scientists could earn more money.

He said, however, health research should be based in universities instead of pharmaceutical companies.

Drug firms, he said, are more interested in selling treatments instead of selling cures because the former are a better business for them.

"They prefer to sell treatments, which you have to keep taking. They don't want to cure you because that will end their business," said Marshall.

New cures have been discovered in universities, he said, a phenomenon he called "curiosity driven research".

Research has not grown as a culture in universities across Indonesia, with many lecturers opting to seek side-jobs for extra income.

No Indonesian university was among the world's top 300 universities, according to a recent survey by Time magazine.

Marshall signed a memorandum of understanding Tuesday to serve as a visiting professor at Pelita Harapan University (UPH)'s School of Medicine in the Jakarta suburb of Tangerang.

Marshall, currently professor of clinical microbiology at University of Western Australia, delivered a lecture at the UPH earlier in the day.

He also met with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the State Palace in the morning.

Marshall said he accepted the UPH offer because he wanted to build connections with Indonesian scientists to develop medicines and vaccines for tropical diseases.

Marshall received the Nobel prize for his discovery that the Helicobacter pylori bacteria is the cause of most stomach ulcers, reversing decades of medical doctrine that held that ulcers were caused by stress, spicy foods and too much acid.

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