ONCE upon a time, economists thought economic growth came from the holy trinity of capital, resources and labour. Then in the 1950s, the American economist Robert Solow proved that this accounted for only around 10 per cent. The remaining 90 per cent he put down to 鈥渢echnical change鈥� 鈥� technological progress and growth in knowledge. Science and technology, in other words. In 1987, he won the .
Today we seem to have forgotten Solow鈥檚 insight. The key to scientific and technological productivity is to give creativity full rein. The academic research that spawned almost all the major advances of the 20th century, and which in turn fuelled spectacular global economic growth, was largely unmanaged. Yet in the 1970s, things changed. Since then, scientists have had to aim their funding proposals at specific objectives. Peer review, seen as fundamental to scientific progress by too many researchers, has removed all spontaneity from the process of generating ideas. Such policies have led to a glittering profusion of new technologies, but most of them stem from major discoveries made decades ago. We are living off the seed corn.
How did it go so wrong? In some ways the pre-peer-review era was a victim of its own success. As scientific development prospered, demand for funding began to outstrip supply, so that scientists had to market their ideas before they could work on them. It鈥檚 all about funding priorities 鈥� how to divide resources between, say, health, the environment or defence. How can one spin the arguments by which one鈥檚 favourite fields might benefit? Horse-trading and vested interests play major roles, and compromise inevitably decides the outcomes. Yet major-league science 鈥� the intense, dispassionate study of profound and difficult problems 鈥� cannot tolerate compromise.
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Furthermore, the scientific successes of the last century were inspired by a relatively small number of top scientists 鈥� around 400, according to my research, roughly the number who won Nobel prizes. These high-flyers 鈥� including the likes of Planck, Einstein, Fleming, Avery, Townes, Franklin, Crick and Watson, whom together I call the 鈥淧lanck club鈥� 鈥� thrived in the environment of academic freedom that prevailed and made generic discoveries that opened the way to such wonders as lasers, nuclear power, biotechnology, computers and telecoms. If today鈥檚 rigid policies had applied throughout the 20th century, a lot of their key ideas would have got short shrift. No one at the time predicted they would lead to great discoveries, for they challenged consensus and met no perceived need.
What can we do to put things right? I do not advocate a return to pre-1970 freedoms for all 鈥� the scientific enterprise is too big for that now. What we need instead is a 21st-century Planck club. No organisation I know is striving for that, though some are aware that change must be made. In 2005 the US National Science Board, the governing body of the National Science Foundation, became concerned that research was too predictable. Its task force on transformative research, on which I served, made recommendations for a new initiative to tackle this, but has yet to make significant progress. One obstacle is the reluctance of some scientists to drop peer review as the gold standard of research. They are deluded. Peer review does not pass what I call the Planck test: while it might work for the mainstream, it excludes radical research.
鈥淧eer review might work for the mainstream, but it excludes radical research鈥�
To identify members of a future Planck club, we will have to bypass peer review. There is already a good model for this. , a BP-sponsored enterprise which I founded in 1980 and ran for 10 years, encouraged researchers with radical ideas to apply for funding. We created an interactive environment in which scientists could select from among themselves. Almost all researchers chosen in this way had previously been rejected by the peer-review process. Many of them went on to be very successful. Take Ken Seddon and Martyn Poliakoff, for example, whose work has transformed the field of green chemistry and might amount to one of the most important developments in industrial chemistry in the past 50 years.
BP subsequently withdrew its sponsorship of Venture Research, which became an early casualty of the obsession with short-termism. But the way is open for creative funding efforts like this to help us find those 400 or so scientists who will transform the 21st century. It would likely cost less than 拢10 million a year for the UK, perhaps double that for the US. Needless to say it will be a considerable challenge to overcome the status quo, so I and other supporters of Venture Research鈥檚 ideals are exploring the idea of public-private partnerships, which could combine flexibility in finance with good access for business to academics and their expertise. We think it could be a powerful combination.