With the words, "But there are still gaps here" the moderator, Gerd Folkers, punctually opens the forum at 7.30 p.m. Only around a fifth of the seats are taken in the 430-seat Auditorium Maximum at ETH Zurich. Perhaps it is a question of repetition. "The theme is the same as last time, just that this time it has the prefix of two Roman numerals," is how Folkers, head designate of Collegium Helveticum, the ETH institution that is organising the year-long series, puts it.

Lots of the participants seem to know one another. The majority had also taken part in previous events (1), as an impromptu mini-poll reveals. Once again the main title is "Money and Intellect", this time with a subtitle in the form of a question, "Freedom or extended workbench?". At issue is the relationship between academic research, on the one hand, and industry and the financial and private sector on the other, particularly the aspect of "what when economy uses universities to carry out its research".

Many participants seemed to know one another from previous events. large

The event begins as usual with more or less short talks or statements from five so-called "leading heads", as one of the rapporteurs of the last event described them (2): "Hidden amongst the audience, the speakers deliver short statements to establish their own importance. It is a good idea to include a woman in their number to loosen up the atmosphere.“

This evening neither representatives from industry nor a "tension-dissipating“ woman are present – the reason perhaps why, amongst the many interpellations during the ensuing discussion, only a single one came from a female participant. "Women are often more reserved when it comes to speaking in front of a big audience, and they usually only say something when they've really got something to say," admits Carla Zingg, Co-head of ETH's Equal Opportunity Office after the event.

Workshop instead of workbench

The first of five statements comes from ETH Professor of Mathematics and Director of RiskLab, Paul Embrechts. He cites an article from the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on the founding of RiskLab and voices his satisfaction that the institute he helped to found ten years ago is still in existence and has good co-operation with big Swiss financial institutes. He calls upon ETH to enter into more such co-operation agreements with industry. Embrechts considers academic research within such a framework to be not so much an extended workbench as a workshop.

Hares vs rolled-up hedgehogs

Embrechts' statement is followed by a lecture from Georg Kohler, Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Zurich, who illustrates recommended possible strategies for universities with the symbol of the hare and the hedgehog. While the somewhat conservative hedgehog sees the role of the university primarily in upholding the classic educational ideals, the progressive hares calls for change. Universities had the tendency to cut themselves off from society, turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the public's concerns. This tendency had to be destroyed. Universities had to take their general cue from the market and help to strengthen competition, for example by developing new products and services. Both attitudes, hedgehog and hare alike, were justified, concludes Kohler. What is important is the balance between the two.

Encrusted structures are a great disadvantage

Martin Schwab, ETH Professor of Neuroscience and brain researcher is more specific in his talk. Fewer than ten per cent of all doctorate graduates from ETH and the University of Zurich had long-term prospects of staying on to do academic research. The remainder had to try to find jobs in applied research in the private sectors, which is a fairly different world. In order to shrink this gap, synergies and co-operation had to be intensified, specialist knowledge and technology needed to flow more quickly from fundamental research to application and courses of study adapted to be more in tune with requirements. If these changes did not take place, grave disadvantages for the Swiss economy would result. To preserve Switzerlands high reputation, encrusted structures had to be thrown overboard.

Industry should be generous

Nevertheless, Schwab warns against placing blind trust in co-operation with industry. A big pharma company had recently offered him a research agreement with no scientific value. Even though a lot of money was being banded about, Schwab declined. Because the aim is not secrecy contracts, but to publish and enable other scientists rapid and direct access to the results. Schwab expects a certain level of generosity from industry for academic research, even if it takes ten years to develop a marketable application.

Idyllic conditions in medical research

"Biology has lost its innocence", insists Klaus Ammann, Director of the Botanic Gardens in Berne. Nowadays, biology influences all aspects of our lives, something that he has become increasingly aware of in the on-going debate on "green" genetic technology. By contrast the situation in medical research was well-nigh paradisiacal.

Georg Kohler studies the picture of the audience projected onto the screen at the third event in the series "Debating Science Culture“. large

Mainstream research instead of innovation

Ammann sees an excessive concentration of scientific knowledge and facts at the universities. The botanist considers the opposing pole of general and traditional knowledge to be neglected, but just as necessary to reshape research parameters as specialist knowledge. A lot of researchers had become little more than "mainstream bench-workers“ and their work aimed primarily at publishing in a respected journal. This meant that universities were losing innovation and room for young researchers and new ideas.

Co-operation with industry as a love affair

In the final invited talk, ETH Vice-president Ueli Suter addresses the negative aspects of "research on demand". Research carried out in this manner could never cover its real cost. If this meant that universities were being misused by industry as cheap workbenches, then this was a waste of tax-payers' money and should be stopped.

In the ensuing discussion Suter compared the relationship between university and the private sector to a love affair. The partnership does not last for ever and afterwards one finds a new partner. Someone interpolated at this point with the remark a love affair sometimes ends in a marriage.

"Think and drink" or "Eat instead of talk"

After the five speakers had finished their talks, which took up exactly an hour, there was a thirty minute break, a "think and drink" as the series programme calls it. Or as the previously cited rapporteur described it after the last event (2), "Eat instead of talk, in order to distract from and break up the dialogue and to see and be seen.“ Promptly in time for the "think and drink" the audience swells by a quarter – perhaps because the academic orchestra's planned break starts at precisely the same time.

Trendy sciences with sex-appeal

After the break the "interrupter", Felix Würsten, greets participants with a list of questions and hypotheses. For example, he advances the claim that new and future-oriented branches of science, such as the life sciences and nanotechnology, are more successful in raising funding thanks to a professional presentation and presence in the media. "Antiquated" disciplines, by contrast, such as construction engineering, geology or energy research, have a harder time of it and a less professionalised lobby. Würsten concludes by asking whether the ETH Executive Board might not in fact welcome the chance to get rid of antiquated areas of research with little or no sex appeal.

Shortly after, the moderator voices a similar suspicion; a (low) level of third party funding was sometimes used as an instrument to eliminate undesirable areas of research.

Overestimation of third party funds

The only female voice of the evening, who the moderator introduces as"particle accelerator", is Felicitas Pauss, ETH physics professor. Not only does she argue against Amman's postulate on the overestimation of publishing. The current overestimation of third party funds was just as bad. It caused problems for disciplines that found it impossible to raise third party funds, because "after all, who wants to invest in theoretical physics?"

Klaus Amman recalls the global problem of poverty and hunger. large

Focussing poverty instead of luxury

Finally, the Botanic Director from Berne, who has repeatedly taken on the role of court jester throughout the evening, seizes the word. "We're sitting here discussing totally unimportant matters, but not what is going on in the developing world," he says and adds, "With annoying regularity I bring the moving problems of poverty and hunger to prosperous Zurich". Instead of debating academic luxury problems like the relationship with the private sector, Amman said he would have preferred to talk about the real problems of our planet.

Abrupt ending

Unfortunately, the moving hands of the clock prevent any general reaction to Amman's repeated attempt to turn the debate. (A participant commented on Amman's protest after the event in the accompanying web forum (3)). Instead, the moderator terminates the event very abruptly after two hours and fifteen minutes, "Now it's really getting interesting," he sighs. His reason? "This is a technical university and the lights go out at 10 p.m. Have a pleasant evening and until next year!".