Research - a detective story
Human curiosity about the world is the driving force for research in all areas of human endeavour. Research in its highest form finds mankind grappling with conceptually and technically difficult problems. Examples are the nature of genetic transmission, the structure of matter, the changing attitudes, ethics, and composition of our society, and what history can teach us to help us deal with the world in the new biotechnology revolution of the twenty-first century.
      Human curiosity, thank goodness, is not restricted to those who are professional researchers. We all exercise our rights to do daily research at a lower level to solve more practical problems, such as why the washing machine has just packed in, and why the computer doesn't seem to do what I tell it to.
      Since I started my research career almost 30 years ago I have come to think of research as "playing a game with the Universe", testing it to make it reveal the answers we seek. This is true whether I am trying to fix a washing machine or understanding what causes a particular human disease.
      In this sense detective stories and research are analogous. There is a problem (a murder to solve), the hero detective asks questions, formulates several theories as to what actually happened, and as a consequence may set a trap to reveal the truth, thus exposing the murderer. This is analogous to the game that researchers play with the Universe; they are the detectives, theorising on what is happening, setting traps (doing experiments) to trick the Universe into revealing its secrets to find out "who done it and how".
      Universities have traditionally been the places where such intellectual energy and curiosity were encouraged and harnessed.
"Should we put an investment into curiosity-driven research, knowing at the outset that most of it will fail to deliver, but that one success may bring enormous benefits to all sectors of society?"
Curiosity-driven research has provided the knowledge driving both the nineteenth century industrial revolution and the twentieth century communications revolution, which continue to contribute to the enormous changes in our lifestyles, thoughts and understanding of the world. As we have moved through this century, industry has grasped the new technology as well as the human generators of it. For example it is often stated that many of the USA's top research pharmacologists are located in large companies and as an inducement are often given a great deal of freedom in the direction their research can take. There is often a component of their brief (albeit small) which is high risk, very innovative, with potential long-term gains to society, as well as the more bread and butter research of immediate benefit to the company. In this way industry is investing in their and mankind's future. Federal government today has a more limited outlook than some of these larger companies and is pushing towards short-term, almost guaranteed outcomes in research, leaving innovative, risky research relatively unsupportable by government funding.
      In Australia, all three sectors: universities, government and industry have to ask themselves: "Should we put an investment into curiosity-driven research, knowing at the outset that most of it will fail to deliver, but that one success may bring enormous benefits to all sectors of society?" One obvious example is the curiosity-driven discovery of penicillin, which led to the development of antibiotics and the consequent saving of so many young lives in particular. If the answer is yes, we have to decide what percentage of our research dollar goes into this high-risk research, compared with the lower-risk research with almost guaranteed short-term outcomes.
      The answer to this question will partly determine where Australia sits in relation to the rest of the world in the next century.
      Professor Val Alder is the new Pro Vice Chancellor (Research). Before coming to Murdoch earlier this year she was Deputy Director (Research) at the Lion's Eye Institute and Deputy Executive Dean of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Western Australia.
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