To excel, RI scientists need supportive infrastructure

Indraswari ,  Bandung   |  Fri, 10/31/2008 9:50 AM  |  Opinion

The Nobel Committee has recently announced the 2008 Nobel Prize winners. Winners in each category will receive 10 million krone (US$1.42 million) at the ceremony which will be held in Oslo on Dec. 10.

German scientist Harald Zur Hausen and France's Luc Montagnier and Frangoise Barri-Sinoussi have won the Nobel Prize in medicine. Hausen -- a professor emeritus at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg -- was awarded half of the prize for his discovery that human papilloma viruses cause cervical cancer.

The other half of the award was given jointly to the Paris-based French pair -- Barri-Sinoussi of the Pasteur Institute and Montagnier of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention -- for their discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which can lead to AIDS.

Tokyo-born American scientist Yoichiro Nambu and two Japanese scientists, Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa, shared the Nobel Prize for physics. The Nobel citation said that Nambu -- a professor at the University of Chicago -- won half the prize for his discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics.

The other half of the prize was given jointly to Kobayashi of Japan's High Energy Accelerator Research Organization and Maskawa of Kyoto University for their discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature.

Two American researchers -- Roger Tsien of the University of California, San Diego, and Martin Chalfie of Columbia University in New York -- and Japanese researcher Osamu Shimomura of the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. They were awarded the prize for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein. The Nobel Committee said that this protein had become one of the most important tools used in contemporary bioscience.

The Nobel Prize in economics was won by U.S. economist Paul Krugman of Princeton University. He was awarded the prize for his work that helped explain why some countries dominate international trade.

France's Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clizio and Martti Ahtisaari of Finland won Nobel Prizes in literature and peace, respectively.

Except for the last two winners in literature and peace, all other winners are researchers based at research institutions or universities. Their research has significantly contributed not only to science but to the well-being of human life as well. As individuals there is no doubt that they are people with the capacity and the commitment to conduct research in their areas of expertise for many years of their lives. Even American physicist Nambu was a leader in his field for more than half a century before he won the prize.

Nonetheless in order to produce groundbreaking research-based discoveries, it is not enough to rely just on individual capacity and personal commitment. I believe that people do not succeed alone -- they need support in order to excel.

Researchers need a supportive environment which enables them to develop their work. Such an environment should provide financial and administrative support as well as proper research facilities.

Financial support enables researchers to continue in their fields. This support includes not only the availability of research funding but also adequate salaries so they can work without worrying whether or not they can make ends meet.

The availability of research facilities such as good libraries and laboratories (for those working in science) also plays a crucial role. How can researchers work if there are no libraries which can provide information on the latest developments in their research subjects? And how can scientists conduct their work without laboratories?

It is sad to say that researchers in many developing countries -- including Indonesia -- lack this supportive environment. This explains why no Indonesians win Nobels and relatively few win other international science awards. And this is also partly the reason why most of the Nobel winners in science are from developed countries as they receive the support they need to do their work properly.

State Minister Research and Technology Kusmayanto Kadiman has acknowledged the lack of financial support for research in Indonesia. Addressing the opening ceremony of the Fourth Asia-Pacific Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics 2008 at the University of Indonesia in August, he said that UNESCO had stipulated that the research budget should be at least 3 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

According to the minister, Indonesia had allocated only 0.07 percent of its GDP for research, far below Malaysia and Thailand which each allocated nearly 2 percent. He hopes that the increase in the educational budget -- now 20 percent of the national development budget -- will lead to an increase in research funding as well.

As a profession, research has not been able to attract young people. Researchers and lecturers at government institutions are civil servants with relatively small salaries. Some institutions give them an additional allowance but it is not enough to substantially improve their economic welfare. Poor libraries and laboratories are other constraints which discourage researchers in Indonesia.

All of these problems lead some of them to change professions in order to seek greater economic rewards. Those who are still keen to remain in research may move abroad not only for economic reasons but also to gain the satisfaction and experience the "beauty" of doing research in developed countries were they are guaranteed the support they need.

A radical change is needed to develop research in Indonesia. Without that there is no need for dreaming of a Nobel. I do not mean to say that doing research is only for the sake of a prestigious award. Nonetheless, Nobel Prizes and other international science awards may be an indicator as to how well research is supported in a country.

The writer is a lecturer at the Department of Public Administration, School of Social and Political Science, Parahyangan Catholic University, Bandung.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.