vol. 335 no. 6064 pp. 36-38
DOI: 10.1126/science.335.6064.36
NextGen VOICES: Results
We asked young scientists to answer this question:
How will the practice of science change in your lifetime?
In the 6 January 2012 issue, we ran excerpts from 13 of the many insightful responses we received. Below, you will find the full versions of those 13 essays (in the order they were printed) as well as the top 50 (in alphabetical order) of the other submissions we received.
Would you like to participate in the second NextGen VOICES survey? To make your voice heard, go to http://scim.ag/NextGen_2.
Essays in print
As we acquire knowledge, we climb a ladder that helps us to see farther, that helps us to observe unexplored territory.
Some scientific disciplines are on the very top steps of their ladders. Our predecessors made enormous contributions while
climbing the ladders of reductionism. As they climbed, they also became more isolated. The distance between disciplines
and subdisciplines increased, as they focused on their own research topics. The challenge today is how to connect those ladders.
To build taller ladders of knowledge we have to create bridges among disciplines, and not be afraid of the distance to the
ground. It is, however, unrealistic to think that single individuals can master several disciplines. A side effect of increasing
intredisciplinarity would therefore be an increase in the number of co-authors of scientific publications. Scientists, even
more than today, will have to learn how to work together. Because of the current vast amount of knowledge, eclectic research
groups will have to play the role that a single scientist played in the XIX century. To facilitate relationships between
disciplines, the way we communicate our results among ourselves, and to the society, has to evolve. Scientific communication
will be transformed into a multimedia experience. Live talk repositories, animations, and videos will enhance the figure
of papers as unique pieces of scientific knowledge. We are therefore entering the Era of Interdisciplinarity. It is the end
of many ivory towers. It is beginning of many bridges.
Luis J. Gilarranz,* Jelle Lever, Rudolf P. Rohr, Miguel A. Fortuna
Integrative Ecology Group, Estación Biológica de Doñana, CSIC, 41092 Sevilla. Spain.
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: lj.gilarranz{at}ebd.csic.es
My retirement speech, in 2045: During the first part of this Century, the economic recession burned into the collective
memory. Society demanded better "value for money" from its scientists, requiring them to demonstrate the impact of their
research on global and national challenges. Some of those challenges, such as climate change and resource depletion, have
only partially been met as scientists have struggled to adapt in a rapidly changing world. Academics spent too much time
doing and too little time thinking; this was perpetuated by a tremendous pressure to perform and succeed. Deep thinking spaces
were eroded by the immediacy of communication, and swathes of information and data. Science and technology have assisted
with nature-mimicking algorithms to respond to pedestrian tasks like sifting through e-mail. Virtual connectedness increased
international, cross-institutional and multidisciplinary research with the merging of our social and professional lives,
but scientists continued to grapple with disconnected "silo" mentalities and the natural-social science divide. Self-preservation
continued to drive research institute agendas. The rise of "super-universities" at the edge of the open source revolution
was always on the horizon. Scientists were so busy that they were often blind to what their universities were morphing into,
although things have started to change recently. There have been some major successes to celebrate, such as the use of desiccation
resistant gene technology for plants (developed in South Africa) which turned many African deserts into productive farmland.
Like the first heart transplant of the previous century, it shows that Africa has much to contribute.
Genevieve Langdon* and Caradee Wright
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7700, South Africa.
*To whom correspondence will be addressed. E-mail: genevieve.langdon{at}uct.ac.za
Looking Backwards into the Future. In La divina commedia, predicting the future was punished in the afterlife by an eternal
existence with one's head turned backwards. For Dante, this punishment was probably merely symbolic. Nevertheless, Dante
made a point: Looking to the past best suggests the future. For the practice of science, the future is suggested by our
rapidly increasing use of information technology. Advancing information technology promotes increased international collaborations.
New tools for online communication, plus a willingness to use these tools, will enable highly effective live cooperation
between scientists working oceans apart. Effective online research collaborations will enable several experimental setups
dealing with interlinked questions in concert. Specifically, today, unraveling new principles of any system or process typically
demands several smaller steps, each warranting publication. The future practice of science will traverse smaller steps in
parallel, through online cooperation between experts, each tackling smaller steps while continuously communicating findings
to their collaborators. This may be envisioned as skipping the stairs and rather taking an elevator. The result? Each paper
will contain fewer questions and more answers. If communication truly erases distance in the scientific community, new fields
are likely to emerge in the intersections between disciplines. Bridging the gaps between disciplines such as neuroscience
and psychology is one of the triumphs I personally hope to see happen. Again, communication is the key, and it may not come
easily. The sharing of knowledge in a competitive world is perhaps the greatest challenge for we who are the next generation
of scientists.
Asgeir Kobro-Flatmoen
The Faculty of Medicine, Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience/Centre for Biology of Memory, Medical Technical Research
Centre, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway.
E-mail: Asgeirfl{at}gmail.com
The biggest challenge facing a generation of young scientists is breaking free of the shackles placed on them by their predecessors.
We are tasked with fixing large dysfunctional institutions that we are given no authority over nor trained to take the reins
of. We are expected to fix broken peer review systems riddled with small insular cliques. We are expected to not only flourish
in, but be thankful for a funding structure that has scarce resources which are primarily used on contract science for the
blessed few rather than discovery based on the merits of ideas and early results. We are expected to survive and contribute
to a larger society that no longer trusts scientists, appreciates expertise, or understands the value science brings to
the world. Science will continue to be dictated from above, not practiced. Science will be performed by those who are willing,
not those best prepared or suited to the task. This future will be brought about in part because disturbingly low levels
of support in our schools for science and math education, spiraling the globe towards all-time lows in scientific literacy
during the modern era. This is the future young scientists see ahead of us. A future handed down by a generation who was
more interested in glorifying themselves than leaving things better than how they found them. We are expected to rise to
this challenge and we're sure as hell going to give it our all. Gosh, who needs a drink?
Jeremy Block
Department of Biochemistry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710-3711, USA.
E-mail: jeremy.block{at}gmail.com
Science is becoming increasingly accessible to minorities, women, and people from a variety of cultural and socioeconomic
backgrounds. Since more people are now being exposed to science, I predict that the speed and significance of scientific
advancements will increase dramatically over the next 100 years. My grandmother was an extremely intelligent woman who spoke
five languages, but she left high school before receiving her degree so that she could work in a mill to support her family.
I wonder what contributions she could have made to the world of science, or any other field, if she lived in a time of gender
equality and financial aid. Today, great minds of all races, religions, and sexes are gathering in universities to collaborate
on research and approach problems with their own unique perspectives. One emerging challenge is that science, more than
ever, is being bottlenecked by politics. For example, scientists have not only shown that climate change is happening, but
they have also already developed many ways to combat it. While politicians continue to debate whether or not climate change
actually exists, our planet continues its destructive spiral. As our country plunges further into debt, these scientists
are left to fight tooth and nail for funding that they may never see. Furthermore, they are waiting impatiently to see their
previous discoveries put into action. At times like these, it becomes apparent that the public never quite understands how
unbelievably vital scientific research is to each and every citizen's daily life and well-being.
Dianne Kamfonik
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
E-mail: diannek{at}mit.edu
Huge data sets from social networks, human behavior and mobility, financial transactions, energy consumption, attitudes
and tastes, or religious and political beliefs are becoming ever more important for scientific inquiry. Large data sets exhibit
a wealth of patterns and characteristics invisible at a smaller scale. For many research groups and labs, it will be pivotal
to work effectively and efficiently with these data sets. This leads to the invention of a new career path in science. The
professional scientific data manager will have a unique skill set from areas like statistics, large database administration,
and information design. Leading university administrations will establish these career paths, at the same time providing
their research groups with a variety of real-time data streams. Some universities and labs outsource data sourcing and management,
so that we witness the emergence of a data-centered service ecosystem. Specialized consultancies offer services like data
collection, documentation, bundling (cross-correlating several datasets), or IT-related services like data management and
hosting. Some integrated wholesalers will sell the complete package. Many massive data sets are collected by companies like
Google, Facebook, or LinkedIn. These companies will provide a free and broad access to their data, or their data warehouses
will be put under state control.
Jörn Grahl
Department of Information Systems and Business Administration, Gutenberg University, D-55128 Mainz, Germany.
E-mail: grahl{at}uni-mainz.de
Ubiquity of tablet technology will result in near real-time textbook updates. School curricula will therefore need to change
on a daily basis. Discovery mining infrastructures built for school districts will give teachers the updated curriculum.
Michael Young
Arlington, TX 76016, USA.
E-mail: mike{at}youngfam.org
Science will transform to a more integrative perspective. The practice of researching in isolation will transform to a more
cross–disciplinary involvement. With the concomitant rise of techno-entrepreneurship trend in researchers than the traditional
intent of remaining in academia, science will encompass more of other disciplines like business, marketing and intellectual
property. Collaborative groups will successfully come up with spin-offs and fund each other's research. A couple of mini-MBAs
and certificate courses in finance will align themselves along with scientific publications in a researchers' resume. Globally
the availability of government funding will still be a major issue, hence amalgamating private, industry and government
interests in a joint proposition will help pool in funds for further research. This in turn would revise the tenure procedure
and researchers would have a 7-10 years time frame to answer one set of research question and spent lesser time asking for
funds. Within science itself topics studied in details in other branches like physics can find en route to biology and chemistry,
opening up a fresh branch of investigation, something that graphene has done. Super-specialization will encompass less understood
branches and researchers would continuously upgrade themselves in related cross-disciplines, through courses, workshops,
trainings and discussions over a coffee cup. Non-basic science topics like environmental, cognitive and nano-science will
come to the forefront. With cross-discipline, cross-border collaboration, beyond the mere sharing of authorship, will develop
as a resultant with the world turning into a global village. One thing that will never change, the passion about science.
Kingshuk Poddar
Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, A*Star, National University of Singapore, 670219 Singapore.
E-mail: kingshukpoddar{at}gmail.com
The cost of plastic-based materials will continue to rise as fossil fuels run dry, but the knowledge to work with glass
has faded. When CORNING no longer makes disposable, plastic everything, I think our lab will have to shut down. The future
will require a lot of re-learning.
Nick Barrows
Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27713, USA.
E-mail: nicholas.barrows{at}duke.edu
As a 16-year-old making my first steps in the world of research, I fear that it will be hard to find interesting phenomena
to study. It seems most of the major scientific questions have been answered, or will be in the near future. For millennia,
people have been asking "Why" and "How" questions regarding almost any phenomenon. During the past centuries, mankind has
been able to answer most, and answers to others are on the way. In the past, the major obstacle to vast scientific progress
was technology. For example, sequencing the human genome would have been impossible without modern computational power.
I'm concerned that few science-catalyzing technological advancements are forthcoming. We know the physical limits that govern
this world (until proven otherwise...) such as the basic units (and their sizes) of matter and organisms. Nowadays, we have
tools allowing us to reach these limits (or theories that say we are barred from reaching them). I believe that one of the
privileges of my generation is that much of the major knowledge there was to know is known. However, this is a mixed blessing,
as there are not many fundamental mysteries to aspire to unravel. Two consequences of this, becoming ever more present,
are narrow professionalization and increasing interdisciplinarity, both broadening research possibilities. Nonetheless, this
abundance of research tools presents a big upside: When a scientist from my generation finds a research subject (challenging,
but possible), they will most likely have the instruments needed, instruments past generations could only dream of.
Or Sagy
Ben Gurion Regional School, Emek Hefer, 42875, Israel; Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 69978, Israel; and Department of Molecular
Genetics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 76100, Israel.
E-mail: orsagy{at}post.tau.ac.il
The key theme distinguishing the future practice of science will be integration. If revolutionary science is to prevail
and increasingly complex problems are to be solved, then the next generation of researchers will be called upon to develop
partnerships across once disparate academic disciplines. As access to information reaches unprecedented levels, the ability
to interpret information into meaningful patterns will become much more complicated. In this rigorous intellectual environment
collaboration will be critical for scientific discovery. The geologist will contact the sociologist. The psychologist will
share a coffee with the physicist. Fostering such openness will be difficult, however. Future scientists will be challenged
like never before to reconcile conflicting motives concerning the advancement of science and the advancement of one's personal
agenda. The next generation of scientists will also experience a stronger union (or reunion) between science and the arts.
Scientists will find a useful medium in artistic expression for visualizing information in innovative ways that explain
fundamental processes in nature. Statistical models will transform in moving mobiles. Two-dimensional graphs will be replaced
by 3-dimensional sculptures. The canny work of Nathalie Miebach illustrates the useful role that art can play in science.
Her musical and visual manifestations of meteorological data are not only remarkably creative but also reveal obscure relationships
underlying the dynamics of weather systems. The preeminent scientific questions of the future will not be answered through
convention and self preservation. Rather, the most influential insights will be gained through integration, artistic expression
and openness.
David R. Daversa
Evolutionary Ecology Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK.
E-mail: dd384{at}cam.ac.uk
Social science will be done by internet companies, as much as it is done by universities, and the lines between social science,
data science, and data journalism will get thinner and thinner. Technology allows everything to be tracked in real-world
situations, meaning that scientists will no longer have to generalize from artificial experiments done on college students.
Internet companies collect this data at far faster speeds and require answers at a far quicker pace than social scientists
are used to, which will place an even greater strain on the traditional journal system. As businesses begin to serve psychological,
rather than physical needs, the data they use will be of increasing interest to social scientists, but papers will no longer
be the ultimate goal. With improvements to data tagging, the semantic web, and evolution of Google Scholar, raw data will
be published and social science findings will no longer be discovered by individual researchers, but instead validated through
simultaneous tests amongst myriad samples collected by many organizations/researchers, all of whom use a common semantic
data-tagging system. The relationship between any two variables will become a real-time exercise in querying the data commons.
Machine learning processes will mine this data and findings will increasingly involve dynamic systems, rather than the isolated
effects of one variable on another. While this may seem like an increasingly impersonal enterprise, the ultimate result
will be a shared deeper understanding of both the human condition, and of each individual's unique tendencies.
Ravi Iyer
Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089–1061, USA.
E-mail:
raviiyer{at}usc.edu
I think in my lifetime, science will become more open, accessible, and "democratic." People will have more opportunity to
make small contributions in doing big projects. Monopoly of big money and secretive research will break, and the benefits
of the latest scientific research would actually reach common people. Our current problem is a systemic one; namely that
scientific R&D is hostage to a few entities with lots of money. One of the many examples, say from medical science, could
be the drug development business. If an anti-cancer drug is discovered today, it would take several years and millions of
dollars to pass the trials. By the time it reaches market, it's prohibitively expensive to almost 99% of world population
(e.g., the anti-cancer drug Gleevec costs $32,000 to $98,000 a year). Several potentially useful drugs were almost trashed
because they didn't seem profitable (e.g., Gleevac for CML, Herceptin for breast cancer). Science today is driven not by
need but by profit. A reevaluation of priorities is needed to truly benefit the society. Interestingly enough, the process
has already begun. In knowledge industry, millions are contributing together, breaking the monopoly of few, to projects
like Wikipedia that are changing the way we learn. Open-source projects (like GNU) are breaking the monopolies in software
industry where collaborative projects like Firefox and Linux are putting people ahead of profit. So I believe, those days
are not far when science will also be done "by the people"–"for the people" and not "for the profit."
Ashutosh Gupta
National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
E-mail: guptaas{at}helix.nih.gov
Top 50 online essays
I am in India. Demographics have it that by 2020, the average age of Indian will be 29, 37 in China, and 45 in Europe and
the United States. A few years later, the great proportion of the world's population will be Indian and young. The practice
of science, though AAAS does a great job to bring science to more people, may still get more specialized, because it is
hard to bear commerce and consumerism. In India, with huge numbers of the very young to educate, it would be well if we could
get them literate, but bringing science to them is the dream. Think tanks speak of the demographic opportunity. Yes, if the
growing numbers could be skilled. In reality, it may not be opportunity, but disaster. Large numbers not lettered in science,
with failing markets, are fodder for politicians and fanatic leaders. In terms of the proportion of the dwellers of Earth,
beset by problems of warming and energy crises, the practice of science, which is the only way out, will decline. I write
science—two columns in English language dailies and some of the pieces in translation into Hindi. My dream is to bridge the
"techie/non-techie" divide. But I am conscious of a greater task at hand.
Subramanian Ananthanarayanan
Colaba, Mumbai 400005, India.
E-mail: anarayanan{at}gmail.com
I believe that the current economic and political conditions in the United States that have contributed to the difficulty
in securing research funding will continue for some time to come. This will likely limit the number of individuals with the
opportunity to pursue a career in biomedical research, particularly over the next 5 to10 years, and will result in the United
States losing its current status as the leader in scientific discovery. The loss of this intellectual capital will be incredibly
unfortunate as individuals with both the ambition and expertise to contribute to the understanding of and treatment of human
disease bow to economic reality and pursue new avenues of employment. Furthermore, the widespread implementation of new,
cutting edge experimental techniques will probably be curtailed due to the more expensive nature of the necessary reagents
and equipment. However, I do believe that the funding situation will eventually improve, at least marginally, in the next
10 to 15 years and that the decrease in the scientific workforce will also help to reduce the intense competition for research
funding that is the current status quo. The challenge for researchers in the interim will be to manage to stay afloat until
this occurs. This will require extremely efficient management of resources, expenses, and personnel, as well as a dogged
determination on the part of all individuals involved.
Donald S. Backos
Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Colorado, Denver,
Aurora, CO 80045, USA.
E-mail: donald.backos{at}ucdenver.edu
There are potentially many ways in which the way we do science now can change in the coming years. One such way would be
to incorporate the practice of "crowdsourcing" into the mainstream science—the idea of distributing tasks to a larger group
of people or community through an open invitation. Some of our future scientific endeavors can benefit a great deal if we
can harness the capabilities from a larger pool of talent. The reason for this is easy to understand: information-overload.
Today, we are not limited by the absence of right instruments; instead, we are limited by the mismatch in the rate at which
these instruments generate data and the rate at which we process/interpret that data. The terabytes of astronomical data
generated by the automated telescopes every night serve as a case in point. Crowd science offers an effective way of tackling
this problem. For tasks requiring more specialized skills, appropriate science-community can be selected. I am certain that
this practice will play an increasingly important role in the future.
Mayank Behl
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
E-mail: behl1{at}illinois.edu
The future of science in our lifetime can be paralleled to trends in society. The main pervasive trend being globalization
in its widest sense: the reduction of barriers in global interaction. This is facilitated by the global spread of fast internet
access, which is creating an information revolution where knowledge is only a mouse-click away, every layperson can comment
and discuss any topic, and authority is potentially disputed. One would expect this development to create a level playing
field for practicing science, making it difficult to conceive of a future where traditional scientific authority survives.
Paradoxically, it was recently shown that authority still comes with age and training: Nobel laureates reach their big break
at an increasingly advanced age, at the moment typically in their late forties. Despite universal access to information,
scientific training remains important for achievement. An explaining factor is the increasing specialization of scientific
practice. In cognitive neuroscience for example, discourse is increasingly moving from the intuitive level of verbal theory
to the level of high-tech and complex computational modeling. Therefore, training and resources (computing power) remain
a differentiating factor, at the same time potentially creating a distance between scientists and the public. Lack of understanding
can lead to the public questioning of the money and resources spent on science. The challenge is to bridge the gap between
specialized work and an intuitive level of explanation. Involving the public through communication will render modern science
accessible in the public domain, helping to justify expensive scientific education and resources.
Ruud Berkers
MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, CB2 7EF, Cambridge, UK.
E-mail: ruud.berkers{at}mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk
Outsourcing will improve (possibly revolutionize) research dramatically. Although smaller institutions may not be able to
cash in on these new revenue streams, they will undoubtedly benefit from a global free market system where they may choose,
based on all the factors a normal consumer would consider, where to outsource their research, rather than being restricted
by the limitations of their personal connections.
Dustin Brewton
Conway, AR 72034, USA.
E-mail: Dbrewton1{at}yahoo.com
The practice of science is changing, and with that, scientists are changing. Scientists are no longer restricted to disciplines
with defined sets of skills and knowledge. We are all inter-disciplinary and have the capacity to make breakthroughs regardless
of the scope of our original work. We have the power of technological advancements that give us unfathomable amounts of
data in minuscule amounts of time. This current state of science will only magnify in the future, and that magnification
will present the challenges of future science. How are we to make sense of data we can collect? How are we to apply it to
improve the human condition? Or should we apply it? How are we going to educate future scientists to prepare them for the
scope and pace of future science? Scientists will no longer learn from books, as they will move too slowly to keep up with
the changing landscape. Scientists will need to be mathematicians and statisticians to make sense of the data they collect.
Scientists will need to be philosophers to truly understand the scope, power, and consequences of their work. The number
of defined scientific disciplines will decrease, as they give way into each other in structure, as many already have in practice.
Science will look much more like it did to Aristotle: a milieu of space, time, objects and theory, intertwined as the precious
fabric that makes up this world, which we as a community of scientists are responsible for making sense of, and caring for.
Remy L. Brim
Department of Bioethics Fellow, National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
E-mail: remy.brim{at}nih.gov
We are living during an exciting time of unprecedented scientific discovery and technological innovation. Rapid and continuing
advancements in computing have dramatically revolutionized how we engage with and make sense of complex scientific phenomena
and data. As a result, computers and diverse technological tools (such as sophisticated data analysis and visualization programs,
interactive virtual models, and dynamic simulations) are now frequently utilized in not only cutting edge research laboratories
but classrooms and schools as well. The increasing use of computers as valuable instructional tools in science classrooms
underscores the need for our educational system to provide innovative instruction that helps students develop the critical
thinking and regulative skills required to successfully use and learn from inquiry investigations with technological resources.
This is an ambitious endeavor for those of us in the STEM education research community invested in reconceiving current
science instruction and curricula. Nevertheless, the benefits of successfully meeting this challenge are profound. Imagine
if students were equipped to proficiently monitor, evaluate, and reflect on their own developing understanding of scientific
ideas obtained from experiments conducted with virtual simulations and models. Imagine if students could efficiently manage
and optimize their own scientific growth and advancement for sustained lifelong learning. As the students of today's schools
will become the scientific thinkers and innovators of tomorrow, I envision and hold great hope that the efforts by present-day
educational researchers and practitioners to restructure science education will have significant and positive implications
for the practice of science during my own lifetime and beyond.
Jennifer King Chen
Graduate School of Education, Education in Math, Science and Technology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley,
CA 94720-1670, USA.
E-mail: jykchen{at}berkeley.edu
Although developing countries have historically played the catch up game in science, the gap between them and developed
countries is still growing. The big question is: Will they ever catch up? Developed countries have established themselves
as knowledge economies, providing an environment in which scientists can focus upon the generation of new knowledge through
experimentation with different ideas. Because of a worrying lack of investment in knowledge production, developing countries
seem content with importing knowledge from the west. The only challenge is that the developed world is experiencing low
numbers of "home-grown" enrollments in science, math, and engineering (due to their perceived difficulty). In the future,
developed countries are likely to intensify the draining of the best talent from developing countries, further widening the
gap between the two. To solve this, developing countries such as South Africa must develop their own talent far in excess
of their needs. This will meet their own demand and that of the west. This will require following the Hong Kong model of
developing top class world leading universities. This may shift the balance of power in knowledge production in favor of
the south. The developing countries then must invest in science, taking advantage of local knowledge and must also develop
a strong culture of science and innovation from the grassroots. This will make them leaders in key areas such as poverty
alleviation, food security, and alternative energy sources. The future of science therefore lies in the global south. Will
this succeed? Only trying will tell.
Shadreck Chirikure,* Genevieve Langdon, Yahya Choonara, Andrew McKechnie, Bernard Slippers, Caradee Wright
Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7700, South Africa.
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: Shadreck.Chirikure{at}uct.ac.za
It is less costly than ever before to cross disciplinary boundaries. For that reason I anticipate a realignment of disciplines,
especially among those that hypothesize regarding the human condition. For instance, an economist researching trade begins
her literature search with a review chapter by an economist. Say this recommends seven economics papers and one in linguistics.
A generation ago, it would take as long to find the linguistics text in those foreign shelves as it would to find all seven
economics texts. Today's price is one mouse-click. An economist is more likely to consult the linguistics text today. On
doing so, she is more likely to encounter research questions and methodologies that are entirely new to economics. The generation
of new and important knowledge can be expected to result from this process. Of course this assumes disciplines can understand
each other. My fear is that threatened scholars will retreat into jargon. There are overlaps across disciplines and some
research must be redundant. For those in a position of weakness, obfuscation is a natural defense. Science moves inexorably
forward but it can be slowed or sped by its environment. The university hurts science and its own relevance if it does not
acknowledge that current disciplinary boundaries are anachronistic. Students who have seen a few TED lectures will balk
at the idea that "education" means learning a canonical body of knowledge. Researchers will seek jobs in the increasing number
of environments that reward interesting insights rather than publication in the right journals.
David Comerford
Duke University Fuqua School of Business, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
E-mail: david.comerford{at}duke.edu
The wide availability of portable computing devices will encourage many people to keep and analyze data, and share their
findings. While this would allow for wider collaboration among experimenters, amateur methodology and biased human logic
will taint scientific discourse in all media outlets. Mainstream media outlets will make celebrities of professional scientists,
as they help the public sort through the confusion. Scientists will need to learn how to be good journalists and must practice
rigid journalistic standards, or else they will be unable to establish or maintain credible reputations. Wide-ranging and
profitable applications based on scientific research will encourage private industry to conduct research without the partnership
of academia. Private industry will develop increasing amounts of knowledge that will remain as trade secrets that will not
be shared with the public or be available for peer review. Academia will have a decreasing role in technology research,
further separating academia from the general economy.
Edgar Floro
Reston, VA 20190, USA.
E-mail: edgarfloro{at}bigfoot.com
Machines will deal with science in the near future (about 40 years from now). The transition will be so gradual that people
will hardly notice it. Humans will be slightly different from what we see walking down the road these days because a large
number of us will be integrated with machines to various extents. The concept of identity will not be as clearly defined
as it is today. Natural languages will not be in use in science anymore. By the time that total nonbiological data processing
power will exceed the biological one, the production of novel results will be already in large part automated. Everybody
on Earth will have enough food to eat and a house to live in. Pneumonia and diarrhea will be a thing of the past. Social
security and medical care will constitute the largest market on Earth. Average life expectancy at birth will touch 90 years.
Soon after people's thoughts, feelings, and emotions will be available on separate data storage devices than our brains,
making the terms life, consciousness and all what is connected with our identities obsolete.
Ruggero Gabbrielli
Department of Physics, University of Trento, via Sommarive 14, 38123, Trento, Italy.
E-mail: ruggero.gabbrielli{at}unitn.it
Science has reached a stage so advanced that almost any problem related to improving the quality of human life has a ready
technological solution. It has produced a vast array of tools and machines that make life at home comfortable. Ironically,
such advancement of science coexists with a colossal number of impoverished people around the world. The problem of hunger,
malnutrition, poor health conditions, homelessness, and general poverty is such common knowledge that we don't even need
to cite statistics here. I envision that science will contribute to the eradication of this great irony of the modern world.
Scientists must take part in answering social problems not only in their comfortable laboratories but also outside where
ordinary folks, who are supposed to be the beneficiary of achievements in science and technology, are living in an uncomfortable
environment. In Third World countries, people's basic needs are not satisfied. Land-grabbing by big multinational corporations
in cahoots with local big businesses is so rampant, and the solution to resolving the conflicts that arise in such situations
is not advanced science but sociopolitical reforms. In order for science to be appreciated in these countries, scientists
from the First World must unite, collaborate, and work in solidarity with those in the Third World not only in doing science
but also in ensuring that there is a conducive environment to do science. In short, science must not only focus on interpreting
the world but also in changing it.
Kim Gargar
Department of Chronobiology, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 7, 9747 AG Groningen, Netherlands.
E-mail: k.a.gargar{at}rug.nl
I think that we can safely say that we need to prepare young men and women of science for the increasing need of feedback
loops (like crowdsourcing) in our society, which if designed properly can help create positive outcomes for both science,
policy, and the environment. This may seem like an obvious point to some, but whether you are speaking physics, biology,
engineering, social or environmental science, psychology, algorithm design, or even the politics of scientists helping to
shape future policy decisions, it is an important point to remember and too often overlooked amongst the voluminous media
noise we often encounter. The use of social networking is powerful and growing at a very fast clip. In some sense, it is
a huge participatory experiment moving us all forward. In years past when dealing with scientific and societal issues we
moved forward at a more modest pace, and policy decisions followed in step after society had digested new discoveries. Social
media helps change things by the hour and minute now. Policy making of the future via scientific input from tomorrow's scientific
and technology discoverers will have to be much more proactive rather than reactive.
Vince Golubic
Allen, TX 75013, USA.
E-mail: golubicv{at}ieee.org
For many centuries, scientists have pursued research questions driven by their curiosity to know, learn, and discover, to
add to the expanding body of knowledge for the mere sake of science. As government budgets for science shrink across the
globe, mandates for government-sponsored research now focus on health needs of the masses, with the current buzz word being
"translational research." For many of us who have opted to pursue science, these words and the underlying philosophy limit
the potential links that exist between research questions that drive our innate curiosity and those ideas that necessarily
occupy our time because of the rigid agenda of the hand that feeds us. This shift in public and government sentiment concerning
science is a harbinger of the transformation required in the way we conduct science. The message is that rapid adaptation
is required in order to survive; i.e., the topics we choose to pursue as our life's work must be in line with the needs
of society. Indeed, continued survival will likely require a new breed of scientist, one schooled in her own field of interest
with an eye for that which will improve human health, as well as one who is sufficiently malleable to withstand the pressures
of gaining funding through creative measures. This scientist must conduct the business of research where the bottom line
is, whether or not the product provided proves useful to society. More than ever, the next generation of scientists will
be composed of individuals of the "Renaissance," or "scientists for all seasons."
Bernadette E. Grayson
Metabolic Diseases Institute, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45237, USA.
E-mail: bernadette.grayson{at}uc.edu
I think the biggest change in science will be funding sources. Large funding agencies (such as the National Institutes of
Health) will shift to a system more like the Howard Hughes Medical Investigator awards, which depend on competency and vision
and give researchers the freedom to follow discoveries wherever they may lead. With more funding for longer periods of time
going to fewer people, graduate and postgraduate positions will have to change. More researchers will become career post-docs
but with higher salaries and more benefits.
Matthew Gruner
Reno, NV 89434, USA.
E-mail: matthew.gruner{at}gmail.com
Papers won't be published anymore with an author list but rather a list of institutions in which the work was carried out.
This change will liberate scientists of the pressure of having first author publications to continue with a prosperous and
self rewarding academic career. Consequently the rate of retractions will drop down. Because papers will come from institutions
rather than from individuals, scientists will be hired on permanent contracts just as many companies do with their employees
(industrialization of research institutes). The Nobel prize foundation will have to change the eligibility criteria as discoveries
(most of them) from today, the past and the future are, were and will no longer be a one-man work, but that of a multidisciplinary
and international team. In order to accelerate the communication of results, open access platforms will be used by scientists
as an "online lab notebook" with which other users in the world could track "live" the results of their contemporary scientists.
This open lab notebook will carry freshly generated and unpublished results and will permit scientists to communicate, coordinate
publications and diminish the costs that come with redundancy of projects.
Luis Miguel Guachalla
Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
E-mail: luis.guachalla{at}gmail.com
There is a clear need for faster learning and communication methods. Currently it takes a third of the average lifespan
to reach the frontiers of knowledge and to begin making contributions to one's field. There is technology with potential
to provide these faster methods. It is already possible to read the activity of individual neurons. Within a lifetime, there
will be means to write information into the brain directly, which opens new possibilities of communication between minds
and computers. This will greatly accelerate scientific progress, as the large amount of time spent reading research papers
and attending talks and conferences is reallocated to thinking and discovery. The formats of published paper, research talk,
and conference will disappear when each piece of new information can be transferred from a mind to the internet almost in
real time, and read from there immediately. Currently the speed of this data transfer is still limited by the time to translate
meaning into language in the mind, type the result as a text on the computer, disseminate it, and on the other end, read
the text and understand it, translating the language back to meaning. The main challenge remaining is the deciphering the
connection between electrical signals in the brain and the semantic concepts in the mind. Creating precise pulses through
single neurons is the secondary challenge.
Sander Heinsalu
Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-7007, USA.
E-mail: sander.heinsalu{at}yale.edu
Although several exciting inventions will be made, will those inventions have a huge impact on the practice of science?
No, people will still have to work in the lab, although working with new techniques and machines. What will change in the
practice of science is the social/economical context. Nowadays most people working in science are doing or already completed
a PhD. However, I expect that more and more technicians will work in science without promoting. Technicians are often more
focused on how to optimize techniques and also like to publish these. The publication of protocols in magazines such as Nature
Protocols/Methods will dramatically increase. Sharing protocols will increase the efficiency of research and will be supported
by governments. Naturally, many professors long working in science will resist to these developments. Other professors will
like it because of the extra publications. Slowly protocol publications will become just as normal as traditional publication.
Menno Hofman
Sanquin Blood Supply Foundation, Department Plasma Proteins, 1066 CX, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
E-mail: m.hofman{at}sanquin.nl
The practice of science will change in one very important way: the scientist. If all the projected population trends hold,
then we shall see an equivalent shift in education and ultimately educators and scientists. The scientist of the future will
be a more diverse population than ever seen before. This diversity shall improve science in general, and provide the world
with differing ideas, thoughts, and approaches across the gamut of research domains. Likewise, we shall see an increase
in culturally based organizations of all sorts. This however may introduce some difficulties in the sense that research communities
shall be required to keep cognizant of their discipline(s) in the global community. Further exacerbating the issue, the
costs of attending internationally sponsored events may be budget-breaking. Although it is advantageous to attend seminars
and conferences in person, perhaps the future holds more of a reliance on the virtual conference environment. There then
is an obvious tradeoff: Attend fewer events and retain some resemblance of a "community" network, or go the virtual route
and sadly forego the networking opportunities in order to save some budget. These and other challenges will somehow work
themselves out and science will prosper and advance beyond our wildest dreams as a result of variety and diversity!
Victor Ingurgio
University of Oklahoma College of Liberal Studies, Oviedo, FL 32765, USA.
E-mail: victor.j.ingurgio-1{at}ou.edu
Scientific research is already very specialized, increasingly requiring scientists to collaborate to get access to the necessary
equipment and expertise. The ever faster development of new technologies will drive even greater specialization during my
lifetime. This change will have big implications for the way scientific research is conducted. As the world becomes smaller,
researchers will have the ability to access specialized expertise and equipment on a global scale. Rather than relying on
local personal networks to establish collaborations, scientists will increasingly use online tools to connect with other
researchers in order to conduct cutting-edge research. This will improve the efficiency of scientific research by connecting
specialists globally but challenges in project management and data sharing will arise. Greater collaboration in science
will also have big implications for the way that science is funded. Increasingly it will not make sense to fund projects
that are restricted to a single laboratory. Current funding models (whereby funds are allocated to individual grant holders
who spend the majority of the money within their own laboratories, buying equipment and learning new techniques to complete
experiments) will be replaced by new funding models that recognize the need to access the specialized expertise and equipment
of colleagues and core facilities by "outsourcing" parts of the project. These new models will substantially reduce the
cost and increase the speed of scientific research. They will also promote greater collaboration between researchers as they
exchange funds for expertise. Challenges will emerge in coordination and management of funds being transferred between researchers
at multiple institutions. As a consequence of these changes, we will see the "do-it-yourself" ideology of science replaced
by a new "global collaborative research" ideology which should dramatically increase the efficiency of scientific research.
Elizabeth Iorns
Palo Alto, CA 94301, USA.
E-mail: elizabeth{at}scienceexchange.com
I think during my lifetime, the scientific community will see a marked increase in the number of multiplatform/multi-institution/internationally
funded projects like the Human Genome project or the LHC program. This is already being seen in areas dealing with problems
of immediate global importance. For instance, in the case of solar fuel generation, two multi-institution initiatives come
to mind: the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis and the Energy Frontier Research Centers. Funding agencies, policymakers,
and also researchers seem to be of the opinion, and to some extent rightly so, that such super-collaborations have a more
serious chance of successfully solving important multifaceted scientific problems, by optimum utilization of expertise and
cutting-edge techniques of diverse teams from across the globe. However, it is likely that the latter will be at the expense
of the confidence and support shown by policymakers, funding agencies, journal publishers, and reviewers for sole investigator
research. But the truth remains that there is no replacement for scientific creativity at the individual level.
Prashant K. Jain
Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
E-mail: jain{at}illinois.edu
I predict a shift in the current paradigm of practicing, sharing,and conducting science in the future. The different science
disciplines will collaborate closely, leading to novel scientific structures, metalabs, and disciplines/metadisciplines.
For example studying cognition will involve psychologists, clinicians, molecular biologists, and physicists working under
the same roof, not just collaborating between separate labs. One can expect that grouping science forces and disciplines
in this manner will result in higher orders of scientific knowledge production. In the same way that the assembling of distinct
biological elements can result in a construction with novel properties, it is not predictable initially. Sustainable technology
advancement will allow for unprecedented experimental possibilities that will combine multimodal approaches in a much easier
manner, accelerating decoding of complex biological mechanisms. Data sharing between institutions will be the regular rule.
However, we will face three major challenges: translational, economical, and leadership challenges. The translational challenge
derives from the increasing society pressure to design science with direct benefit for society. For example, group of patients
will order scientific research that aims at fixing their disease in a customized and affordable manner. The economical resources
of scientific research will be mostly directed toward projects that aim at society/everyday life improvement. The leadership
challenge will emerge as a consequence of multidisciplinary science. Science leaders will cope with so many technical aspects
that they will not be able to master all the approaches used for the projects they will conduct. Future metalabs and metadisciplines
should be able to address these challenges.
Béchir Jarraya
CEA NEUROSPIN Inserm Avenir/Versailles University, Gif-sur-Yvette 91191, France.
E-mail: bechir.jarraya{at}cea.fr
Once at a meeting I had a thoughtful conservation with someone who later wanted to invite me to a conference. Forgetting
my name, he only remembered that I was a black female graduate student studying water-related issues at Duke. With this description,
an e-mail chain eventually reached me. I was thankful, because he became my mentor, but I was also sobered. There were so
few black women in marine science that I was found based on my race and gender. In my lifetime, I hope the face of the science
community will come to reflect that of our society. This is critically important for environmental science. A more diverse
science community may frame research questions differently and in doing so address the needs of the whole society. Such
reframing is crucial if we hope to galvanize our society to improve environmental practices. The challenge of balancing environmental
protection with disparities such as economic opportunity and health cannot be left to other fields. The environmental science
community can meet this challenge by creating a community of scholars that is diverse and integrated across race, gender,
ethnicity, discipline, methodology, and perspective. Recently, I was mistaken for someone else at a conference. Rather than
feeling chagrin, I was excited. Likely the searcher was told to look for a bBlack woman. This other black woman, who studied
black fishermen, gave me cause for hope. She was evidence of progress, suggesting the promise of a more inclusive future
and significant science that truly prioritizes diversity.
Lekelia D. Jenkins
University of Washington School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, Seattle, WA 98105, USA.
E-mail: kikij{at}uw.edu
Although foretelling the future is notoriously difficult, the best prediction of the future is often steady continuation
of current developments. Taking that as a starting point, we may expect that future science will be increasingly faced with
a public expectancy of concrete improvements to quality of life as a return for investments. Consequently, the science of
the future may be increasingly conducted in large-scale cooperative groups, with a strong focus on testing standardization
and replicability. Those scientific fields with a collaborative approach and clear questions that can be answered by the
application of technology, such as testing of the standard model of physics, or the identification of the genetic risk for
complex human disorders, may garner an increasing share of funding, whereas more fractioned fields that focus on questions
that are difficult to test experimentally may suffer. For individual scientists, the pursuit of knowledge will be a little
less free and independent, but the reward will be the opportunity to be part of a process that delivers genuine progress.
In addition, we may expect future scientific research to uncover staggering levels of complexity in biological, physical
and social systems. Making sense of that complexity will be an increasingly difficult challenge for the future scientist.
Could the pace of progress in uncovering complexity slow within the lifetime of young scientists, as understanding nears
more complete levels? It is certainly hard to imagine in this point of time, but it may just be within the reach of a lifetime.
Sietse Jonkman
The Scripps Research Institute, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA.
E-mail: sjonkman{at}scripps.edu
My intuition is that over the next 50 years the practice of science will become more focused, interdisciplinary, multicultural,
and transparent. First, as we achieve satisfactory understanding of basic phenomena, and gain greater technological and
methodological capabilities, we will increasingly turn to narrower, more concrete questions. Scientists will focus less on
discovery and more on precision and process, delineating phenomena's causal mechanisms, variability, and boundaries. As
problems turn more specific, the ways we tackle them will diversify across disciplines and levels of analysis. In my field,
newer approaches integrate evolutionary, neurochemical, psychological, social, and cultural processes in the study of a
single phenomenon. Despite its potential, interdisciplinary research is challenging. Scientists must foster an appreciation
of other fields' theories and methods and be comfortable exploring literatures outside their expertise. Funding agencies
must also evolve to accommodate proposals that defy simple categorization. We will also see greater diversity in our community.
Emerging economies will continue to invest in high quality training and recruitment, potentially weakening the hegemony of
U.S. journals as the foremost scientific outlets. Like interdisciplinarity, diversity brings exciting opportunities along
with challenges. Researchers will have to overcome preconceptions, and cultivate a mindset of openness, sensitivity, and
respect for foreign collaborators. Finally, I anticipate a growing push for more accessible and transparent science. Already
we see a call for open-access publishing and public availability of data. In addition to benefiting researchers directly,
I believe greater transparency will ultimately increase the public's interest in and respect for science and scientists in
general.
Spassena Koleva
Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
E-mail: koleva{at}usc.edu
Scientific publishing will be revolutionized as open access and open evaluation replace the traditional journal system.
Peer review will no longer be done in secret before publication, but scientific papers will be published instantly online
and evaluated on an ongoing basis by post-publication peer review.
Nikolaus Kriegeskorte
Medical Research Council, Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, CB2 7EF, UK.
E-mail: nikolaus.kriegeskorte{at}mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk
Information overloading will be greatly decreased. Scientists would be able to record their research in a multimedia format,
such that other scientists do not have to read the new journal article. Instead the research will be streamed onto personal
hand-held computer or phones, and users will listen to and watch the new science. This will keep the scientists up to date
with the new information in a short time. New findings emerge every day—for example, every year 10,000 articles on the atmospheric
science are published, and it is not possible to keep up with this kind of information. In most of the scientific fields
approximately 1000 articles are published every year. Scientists cannot read this many articles. Therefore, the only way
to grasp the new science is via a multimedia format. Animations, an actual interview, and the figures will be covered in
3 to 5 minutes. I think this will revolutionize the publication process.
Gourihar Kulkarni
Pacific Northwest National Lab, Atmospheric Measurement Lab, Richland, WA 99354, USA.
E-mail: gouriharkulkarni{at}yahoo.com
During my lifetime, the genomes of unicellular and multicellular organisms have been sequenced. The next step, interpretation,
is currently being tackled. Issues of genetic privacy and discrimination may quickly become relevant before appropriate
measures are set in place. The average citizen may be required to be more versed in science to understand the major ethical
issues of scientific advances such as genetic sequencing and stem cell therapies as they become commonplace. The obligation
of academic research institutions to engage with non-scientists may become more pressing and should be taken seriously. It
is tempting to speculate that there will be an increased globalization of scientific research—while the major research centers
currently tend to be located in the US and Europe, other parts of the world, in particular, Asia, are building up attractive
programs. Another change I hope to see is in the training of scientists. The current program favors a training period longer
than other fields after which, only few tenure track positions are open. Shorter specialized master's programs combining
biotech and business may become more popular. Perhaps the choice to go into industry will lose its stigma in the hallowed,
but detached, ivory towers. Perhaps the idea of the PhD may fall entirely out of favor or may morph into something more relevant
or "well-rounded" and therefore useful in more contexts.
Gloria K. Lefkowitz
Department of Dermatology, University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, La Jolla, CA 92093-0869, USA.
E-mail: lorikuo{at}u.washington.edu
Scientific results appear at an accelerating rate. In addition to the growth of science proper, scientist are no longer
the only individuals generating valuable knowledge. Powerful personal computers allow hobbyists to produce scientific results:
a bright high-school student armed with open-source tools can answer questions that were out of reach to the statistician,
sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher of 15 years ago. The central problem is that even with narrowing specialties,
no individual can absorb everything relevant from the fire hose of new results—and once we relinquish the ability to form
a "big picture," we are at risk of losing the ability to see the patterns that could lead us towards future scientific breakthroughs.
To continue to build on the rapidly accelerating cache of knowledge, we will need to organize and process this enormous
network of individual results. I foresee a solution arising from humans and computers working together to capture patterns
in collections of information far larger than what can be contained in a single human mind. This "meta-science" will rely
on two central elements: A constantly updated collection of current knowledge with the ability to distinguish between the
valuable, the redundant, and the plainly incorrect—i.e., the next iteration of Wikipedia—and computer algorithms that can
recognize patterns in such collections, work closely with scientists (whose role will be to critically evaluate the value
of the suggested patterns), and use suggestions to form new (testable) hypotheses.
Sune Lehmann
DTU Informatics, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800 Kgs Lyngby, Denmark.
E-mail: slj{at}imm.dtu.dk
As a researcher within the field of Environmental Toxicology I clearly see the need for scientists to cooperate in interdisciplinary
projects. The vast improvement is that a more holistic approach to finding broad solutions covering many issues and perspectives
will result. The new emerging challenges are many, for instance finding suitable partners to cooperate with. Also, not all
constellations necessary will be easy to determine in the beginning of projects but will emerge as needs during a project.
And in such a situation one needs a "soft approach" to the project composition to allow for new participants and perhaps
reduce the part for others, a very tricky challenge. Another challenge will be to seek funding as interdisciplinary projects
might cover several different disciplines with completely different "traditional sources" of research funds. Yet another
challenge is that the projects might be huge and expensive without immediate results and gain. So, it takes visionaries
to create the projects, but also visionaries to give funding, and to keep on giving funding. The researchers of today, who
are working on very short projectsand accustomed to receiving 1 to 4 years of project funding (and at the absolute minimum
project cost) with the need to produce several papers during this time, will also have to be visionaries and work toward
creating interdisciplinary longer projects. This change of perspective clearly is a challenge.
Katrin Lundstedt-Enkel
Department sof Organismal Biology and Environmental Toxicology, Uppsala University, SE-752 36 Uppsala, Sweden.
E-mail: katrin.lundstedt-enkel{at}ebc.uu.se
"Science in service to society" will be the hallmark of change as we realize that our research cannot be conducted in isolation
from problems facing the planet. Funding agencies will continue to shift more resources toward supporting applied science,
as already seen within some private foundation funding and several new NSF granting programs for sustainability. Our challenges,
however, will be at least threefold. First, applied science needs to be widely valued and rewarded; it is currently accepted
as a worthy pursuit in only some disciplines. The recent congressional hearings questioning the role of social, behavioral,
and economic science research at NSF highlights that attitudes need to change. We suggest that scientists engage in the
government budgeting process, communicating to officials the value of applied science. Second, we need closer working relationships
across disciplines and sectors to contextualize and calibrate applied research with society's needs. Many institutions are
creating institutional structures to support applied research and degree programs or opportunities for embedded cross-disciplinary
experiences, but this approach is still the exception, not the norm. Grassroots efforts to support fellow scientists such
as publicly applauding the applied work of others can result in large-scale shifts. Third, we will need to strike the balance
between applied and basic science. While applied science provides the paths for a more sustainable future, this research
is often built on the scaffolding of basic research that informs our core understanding of the world. Dialogue within our
respective fields that continually questions this balance is necessary to provide the scientific foundation for change.
Sara M. Maxwell1* and Lekelia D. Jenkins2
1Marine Conservation Institute, University of California, Santa Cruz Long Marine Laboratory, Santa Cruz, CA 95060, USA.
2University of Washington School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, College of the Environment, Seattle, WA 98105-6715,
USA.
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: smaxwell{at}ucsc.edu
I would summarize the upcoming trend as this: From Hypothesis to Data-Driven Research, or the End of the Age of Science,
and the Dawn of the Age of Systemics. We can observe a paradigm change in science, and two computer developments are responsible.
The first is the enormous storage capacity in the cloud. The second is that a huge number of computers have been connected
and organized in social networks. These changes have resulted in huge quantities of data and complex systems, a problem
normal science cannot solve. The traditional hypothesis method can deal with simple correlations between A and B. But the
method fails if the problem becomes more complex. Science has been synonymous with a separating, reductionistic approach.
Contemporary science has come to a point where we will change the perspective from reductionism to holism. We now move to
a position that sees things together: short systemics. The data-driven science approach changes the scientific method and
results in a practice called "science 2.0" (named after web 2.0). "Science" will happen in the cloud, with new publishing
formats such as direct publishing on blogs, new and fast ways of collaboration in social networks, and systems theory as
the new "science" paradigm. Systems theory is already important in fields such as systems biology and its practical application
synthetic biology.
Gerd Moe-Behrens
Leukippos Institute for Synthetic Biology, 10777, Berlin, Germany.
E-mail: leukipposinstitute{at}googlemail.com
The practice of science will be more quantitative and integrative with the support of computers and mathematical models.
Improved software and databases will enable complex simulations, which will shift more experiments from laboratories to computers.
This will especially affect drug design and trials and will reduce costs of drug development. Science feeds technology and
technology feeds science. This mutuality has helped research intensively so far and will serve scientists in the future.
For example, novel equipment will help molecular biologists track molecular events simultaneously in vivo or astronomers
discover deep space in a more detailed way. In the future, the need for cooperation will ever increase to get over deeper
scientific problems which require both comprehensiveness and specialization concurrently. Therefore, interdisciplinary and
international interaction between scientists will be common. Rapid exchange of ideas and sharing of experience will accelerate
research and will improve position of science as a common value of humanity. Despite all of these improvements, scientists
will have to face some challenges. It is not easy to predict economic trends in the future, but funding of research and development
may decrease. Or distribution of funding to scientific research areas may be more unbalanced, which would probably distress
especially research areas that do not promise practical outcomes. Another challenge may be controversial patent issues such
as patented genes that make some important research interests exclusive and restrict or delay potential public benefits.
Gürkan Mollaoğlu
Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Koc University, 34450 Sariyer, Istanbul, Turkey.
E-mail: gmollaoglu{at}ku.edu.tr
I can only speak for the field I am working in, which is Molecular Biology. There, I think, we will see a transition from
the classic Molecular Biologist mostly dealing with wetlab science to a more information driven Systems Biologist. High volume
data sets are generated more and more by technologies like sequencing and proteomics. Other -omics are slowly becoming more
popular (such as Metabolomics). I suppose there will always be a need for somebody doing "follow-up" type of experiments,
but ever so slowly a lot of the data will be out there and just need to be uncovered following the lead of a previous discovery.
Therefore, I would predict our future job as Molecular Biologist will involve large amounts of data-mining of already existing
large-scale data sets and our toolkit will have to expand beyond wetlab work into programming and proficiency with various
data-handling and extraction tools.
Markus K. Muellner
Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
E-mail: mmuellner{at}cemm.oeaw.ac.at
Societal, economical, geo-political, cultural, and technological transformations are going to have significant influence
on the practice of science in the coming decades, affecting who is practicing science, how they do so, and where. Technological
advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and computing in general already enable collection and processing of information
scents from "big data" and will keep driving computational methods into social science. AI will also automate parts of the
research in life and natural sciences. Progress in our understanding of large-scale distributed collaboration, coupled with
trends of specialization will foster larger collaborations and crowdsourced science. Continuous instability in global economic
and geo-political environments herald financial challenges for universities, posing threats to science as a vocation. Norms,
social structures and institutions such as peer-review and tenure may drastically change, as would the scientific publishing
industry. Increasing stratification will cause many talented people to give up academic careers for work in rising multinational
corporations, who will fund applicative research. As larger data sets become owned by companies, free dissemination and open
scrutiny of findings will be challenged. That said, the trend of open science will continue to strengthen, and provide an
opposite force. Our prosperity depends on open science.
Yiftach Nagar
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142 USA.
E-mail: ynagar{at}mit.edu
Rapidly accelerating technologies, increased access to information and the growing multi-sector involvement of government
and private sector is forcing multidisciplinary dialogues. Science has long held the last say in many areas of life, but
with growing ethical issues related to advances in for example genomics and synthetic biology, inclusion of more stakeholders
in science, including lawmakers, policymakers, and ethical committees has become relevant. Interdisciplinary approaches
enable critical engagement, introduce opportunities to make new interpretations, as well as find new connections that allow
the consideration of new perspectives in ways that traditional disciplines would not normally address. There is also greater
room for innovation. For example, nanotechnology is expected to provide incredible opportunities for future medicine, and
we are witnessing engineers involved in the creation of new biological matter. Indeed, the opportunities are limitless.
However, as we look into a future of promise, a range of ethical and regulatory issues arise as disciplinary boundaries blur.
And not only that, we see a move toward a science that is focused issues related to human enhancement. The doing of science
for commercial and aesthetic purposes introduces new potential to nuance social prejudices. Additionally, science is expensive
and requires a specific set of expertise. This is likely to widen the class divide.
Emily Ngubia Kuria
Institute for Medical History, Charitè University School of Medicine, 10117 Berlin, Germany.
E-mail: Emily-benice-ngubia.kuria{at}charite.de
Do we really need science to change? Shouldn't we keep its essence? Probably the most overwhelming and increasing trend
in science is that of globalization. We are going toward the collective creation of knowledge, as has never been seen before,
by means of the every-day-faster developing technological resources, providing tons of data. At the same time science is
involving more and more people day by day, is spreading to multiple micro-topics, focusing on smaller and smaller knowledge
niches. It seems that in the realm of super-specialization, in the era of the 'omics' papers signed by hundreds of people
or mega-laboratories such as CERN concerning many countries, there is no place for fundamental individual contributions,
for discoveries with a broader scope such as gravity, relativity, evolution, or genes. One reason is probably that no human
mind can embrace the expanding universe of science, even in one single discipline. Will we miss something if we are not
able to connect everything? Is this going to be the end of classical science as we know it? In my opinion, the great challenge
will be to make sense of the increasing amount of data. Will we be capable of extracting new general laws able to explain
all that we can measure? Can computers really help us to extract valuable information, general relations? If we manage,
one way or another, to accomplish it, a greater and unimagined order behind nature will be revealed, without doubt....I hope
so.
Laura Orellana
Molecular Modelling and Bioinformatics Group, Joint Research Unit, Institute for Research for Biomedicine and Barcelona
Supercomputing Center, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
E-mail: Emily-benice-ngubia.kuria{at}charite.de
In fact the practice of science is the reproducible research methodology applied by scientists to address systematically
the natural phenomena. In future, it will not necessarily follow a linear path, proceeding from a question through observation,
hypothesis formation, experimentation, result and conclusion. The practice of science will entirely be focused on the collection
and interpretation of data rather than reasoning based philosophical explanations of natural events. The present trend of
bibliometrix has immense potential to jeopardize future scientific research in which the publishers and editors of JCR indexed
journals will continue to play a pivotal role in determining the direction and type of research rather than the need of the
research. The acceptance and publication of research or review articles with a view to improve the journal's impact factor
irrespective of the innovation and utility of the research will lead to lopsided development of science and creation of an
incomplete science literature. This practice will keep on ignoring a vast amount of scientific knowledge published in low
impact journals. To get the benefit of high impact factor in faculty selection, academic promotions and project funding,
the tendency of citing articles published only within two years will forcefully cause many important previous and early investigations
to become obsolete. The practice of science has to face certain challenges including the measures to overcome environmental
deterioration as well as adverse effects of genetic manipulations. If no effective practice is developed and brought into
effect, our lovely planet will witness a massive catastrophe.
Bam Deo Pandey
Department of Fisheries, Margdarshan Sansthan Agriculture College, Ambikapur, Sarguja- 497 001 (Chhattisgarh), India.
E-mail: bamdeo_pandey{at}yahoo.co.in
Science will change in a number of ways. However, the most predominant way would be replacement of human labor with automation.
Many of the bench research techniques that are currently being done by humans will be done by robotic devices instead. This
change will be gradual and not all at once, and probably will not fully occur in my lifetime. This change will help science
in the long run because there will be less room for error and the success rate of the experiments should rise phenomenally.
However, failures in this system will surface if the robotic device malfunctions or is programmed wrongly. The biggest caveat
with this system of labor transition, however specious it may be, is that there will be a loss of jobs (human labor being
replaced by automation). This assessment is specious because jobs will be created in other venues of science, such as duties
involving analysis of data gathered by the robotic devices as, well proper programming, manufacturing and maintenance of
the robotic devices. The pitfalls with this system will be eclipsed by the advantages—namely, a rapid accumulation of strong,
less nebulous data leading to a faster rate of procurement of scientific findings, and ultimately breakthroughs. In retrospect,
science will benefit greatly by automation as more and higher quality experimental data will be obtained in a shorter span
of time as compared with that done by a human workforce.
Trivikram Rajkhowa
Baltimore, MD 21211, USA.
E-mail: trajkhowa1{at}gmail.com
Within my lifetime, I believe that science will most fundamentally change in terms of access and involvement, and that these
changes will be driven both by improved capability and increased responsibility. The phenomenon of crowdsourcing has emerged
rapidly due to improved connectivity and access to education, and has recently led to major breakthroughs in the scientific
realm. The solution of HIV's retroviral protease structure by Foldit gamers garnered enormous publicity, but scientific
crowdsourcing has also been proven successful by portals such as Innocentive where many individuals have solved technical
problems for cash rewards in their free time. Crowdsourcing is here to stay and I believe we will see a rapid expansion
of the technical subfields in which its power is harnessed. On the responsibility side, automation technology is rapidly
improving to the extent that even high-tech suppliers such as Foxconn are replacing thousands of factory workers with robots.
As robotic labor overtakes humans in efficiency across many industries and at many points along the value chain, new types
of jobs must be created to ensure stable employment for the working-age population. I believe that going forward, scientific
enterprise will absorb some excess labor supply both through remote work such as crowdsourcing, and through the establishment
of training programs that allow skilled laborers to work in science performing tasks that don't require a PhD but are currently
performed by trained scientists. This will increase the job pool while allowing scientists to concentrate on their roles
as knowledge workers.
Vyas Ramanan
Department of Medical Engineering and Medical Physics, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Cambridge,
MA 02139, USA.
E-mail:vyas{at}mit.edu
We are training more and more scientists, yet NIH funding (and therefore job opportunities) is limited. I keep hearing tell
of budgets being cyclical by more senior scientists, but I have to question whether or not this is really true or just the
perception of those who were fortunate enough to be employed during the budget doubling period. Even if times improve, and
I believe they will, I can't imagine the expansion of the job pool will keep up with the ever-expanding job demand. And
with industry lay-offs being what they are, the private sector doesn't look any more promising. It is unfair to continue
to train more scientists at the current rate. When we encourage people to become scientists, we are making empty promises.
As a society, we need to think about what the optimal number of scientists is, and work toward that instead of training as
many as we can convince to sign up. So what does this mean for the practice of science in my lifetime? Hopefully there will
be a shift in who's doing the science away from scores of graduate students. This will require a change in NIH program funding:
Money should be moved away from training programs and instead spent on salaries of those already trained. I just hope the
scientific community can learn to adapt to the ever-changing economic landscape. I worry that we will instead continue with
the status quo, our fingers crossed that politicians will decide to expand science spending infinitely.
Rebecca Roof
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD 20852, USA.
E-mail: roofra{at}ninds.nih.gov
In my lifetime, science will see new advances and new challenges, primarily driven by new technology. One major improvement
will be a continued increase in data. New technology will continue to increase data availability, and such data will challenge
our analysis ability. Fortunately, the tools to turn data into information will exist, but it will take effort to put them
to work and answer questions. We will therefore see an increased focus on computer skills. A more subtle change in science
will happen in the way we communicate results. Communicating results is a large part of science, and the way we communicate
affects the way we do research. The internet has already challenged the traditional publishing model, and it will continue
to do so. As our attention span decreases, people rely more on short, effective communication, so the scientific publishing
industry will adapt. Publications will decrease in length and increase in frequency, improving rapidity of research. However,
this will cause at least two major challenges: First, as publication becomes more frequent, the literature will become more
saturated with noise. We will more commonly evaluate research post-publication. Second, we will have to rethink the way we
distribute credit. It will not be enough to count publications, but impact will be measured in different ways, mostly online.
Overall, these changes will lead to improved research efficiency; however, scientists may have to learn new skills and challenge
old habits in order to take full advantage of the improvement.
Nathan C. Sheffield
Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, Duke University, NC 27708,
USA.
E-mail: sheffien{at}gmail.com
Next Generation Science. A senior researcher who was about to retire recently told me of a colleague who, in the 1970s,
spent 3 years trying to find a six-base-pair gene sequence recognized by a restriction enzyme. Today we routinely generate
thousands of genome sequences in a matter of days. In like manner, an accelerated advance in scientific research is anticipated
in the next generation. Advances in robotics, software engineering and electronics will enable us to develop high-throughput
techniques for most scientific procedures so that multiple analyses can be done on an unprecedented scale. Furthermore, current
studies have revealed that many physical and biological systems, though complex, are controlled by variables within their
environment, making them predictable by computational modeling approaches. We can therefore anticipate that researches in
the future will not rely solely on laboratory and field experimentation, but also on computational modeling. These advances
will usher in a new multidisciplinary approach in scientific research. These anticipated improvement in scientific research
will enable us understand our world better and will also help in developing generic and targeted innovations that will not
only be useful for industries but more importantly, will improve the livelihood of the everyday person. But these changes
bring their challenges. Besides the problem of managing the huge volume of data that will be generated, one main challenge
will be the regulation of scientific researches such that ethically acceptable techniques will be used and that new discoveries
are not exploited for inhumane purposes.
Oluwaseyi Shorinola
Department of Molecular Microbiology, John Innes Centre, Norwich, NR4 7UH, UK.
E-mail: oluwaseyi.shorinola{at}jic.ac.uk
One of the great changes that is likely to take place in the practice of science in the coming years and decades is a great
increase in public involvement in science. Much science is paid for by the public, and people are beginning to demand more
say in how their money is spent. I believe we need not cow from this involvement and that there are two paths open to us
as scientists to deal with this situation: (i) Increase the distance between the public and scientific research, including
the funding thereof. In this way, governments can give money to scientific experts who can allocate funding with relatively
little public interference. (ii) Increase communication with and education of the public by scientists so that they are
better able to see the potential benefits of scientific research. This would allow the public to engage in informed criticism
and support of scientific programs. Neither of these strategies would be easy, but I think it's clear that the second is
greatly preferable. The scientific community cannot consider itself separate from society as a whole. Indeed we should be
seeking to make science as central to our culture as literature or music. Why shouldn't people demand accountability from
scientists? This is not something we can do alone—we must work together with the media, governments, educators and communities.
It will be difficult, but the benefits of a scientifically informed public could be enormous—to both scientists and to society
as a whole.
Paul Southworth
Laboratory of Malaria, Immunology, and Vaccinology, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, National Institutes
of Health, Rockville, MD 20852, USA.
E-mail: paul.southworth{at}nih.gov
For science to advance, researchers must follow the discoveries of their peers and keep abreast of new knowledge and ideas.
Over my lifetime, the number of practicing scientists in the world will continue to rise as new global powers such as China
expand their research output. This will mean that the number of papers each researcher needs to read to keep up with developments
in their field will increase significantly. Many scientists currently read papers online, and that trend will continue as
the number of journals in print declines. The switch to online consumption affects the total length of research articles,
which can expand infinitely without page restrictions. Even in journals with strict space allowances, the provision of extensive
supplementary material means that we face an ever-increasing mountain of knowledge to climb. In the face of this information-overload,
the scientific community and journals need to work together to ensure that they provide a rigorous, but fair review process;
an increase in the quantity of research must not lead to a loss in quality. But most importantly, journals and academics
must ensure that new discoveries and significant advances are disseminated to a wide audience. We can improve our ability
to identify the best research by using the amazing power of the internet to evaluate and discuss new developments in online
forums. Good scientists try to assimilate all knowledge relevant to their area; as the amount of research increases this
will continue to present new challenges.
Mair Thomas
Department of Microbiology, Centre for Molecular Microbiology and Infection, Imperial College, London, SW7 2AZ, UK.
E-mail: mair.thomas{at}ic.ac.uk
We are living in a very interesting time of our history. Look around, our world and our technology are changing before our
eyes. Could people even imagine 50 years ago what science and technology would be able to explain? It seems we are facing
the biggest and most important changes in the human history. How will the practice of science change in my lifetime? One
can expect that as in the 20th century, mathematics will play a bigger and bigger part in all fields of science. This is
the so-called process of mathematization. Even now we can observe the increased role of mathematics and its penetration
into all spheres of human activity. There is no doubt that the role of information technologies will also increase in the
future. More and more research will require serious computing power and hence the development of computing facilities. The
branches of science will change in the sense that the most of scientists will be working on the intersection of extremely
different scientific fields. What new challenges will emerge? One of the main issues of the future science will be the problem
of ethics. The advancement in genetic engineering, microbiology, the creation of nanomachines, and medicine will bring up
a lot of philosophical questions about the human nature and the line of development of our society. I am also sure that
it is our generation who will have to solve the problem of climate fluctuation and finding new renewable energy sources,
given the latest events that have shown how important it is.
Anton Ushakov
Institute for System Dynamics and Control Theory of Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, 664033, Irkutsk, Russia.
E-mail: anton.v.ushakov{at}gmail.com
The advancement of the internet, computing power, and the interfacing of hardware apparatus has already and will continue
to drastically change the way science is conducted. In my lifetime I expect that people will not be required to be physically
present to operate sophisticated apparatus and that remote and robotic operation will become more normal. This will enable
access to the state-of-the-art facilities to researchers from around the world and in particular open doors for people from
developing nations. We will see more international collaboration in science and the ability to access publications easier.
We will face the challenge of how to move vast amounts of data between regions and countries, with experiments now producing
quantities of results that our current infrastructure struggles with. The way we publish our results will change. We have
been using the book two-dimensional print approach for hundreds of years. We have not yet fully embraced video, audio, and
digital media for contents in journals. Print just cannot capture all of the information we can generate and this limits
our current wide-spread dissemination of knowledge. Online open-access journals will emerge. The major challenge facing science
is not to stifle creative basic science in the aim of forcing application driven research that is geared primarily for boosting
the nation's economy. A balance of both applied and fundamental research is key for science to continue to be a fun, interesting
and attractive option for students of the future.
Jamie H. Warner
Department of Materials, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3PH, UK.
E-mail: jamie.warner{at}materials.ox.ac.uk
The Internet has long been heralded as this era's printing press, allowing for an unprecedented explosion in scientific
progress. Web sites like Wikipedia and initiatives like the NIH's Public Access Policy have been integral in making information
more accessible. We are also beginning to see the creation of systems to aggregate, standardize, and open knowledge to analysis;
computable knowledge platforms such as Wolfram Alpha and IBM's Watson have proven the value of this nascent technology. In
the past, the most groundbreaking discoveries were made by polymaths—individuals who knew a bit about everything. The development
of large, standardized databases of scientific knowledge will allow us to bypass the Renaissance man and use computational
analysis to help uncover valuable links between seemingly disparate fields. As we move into the era of full-genome sequencing,
genetics has been one of the first fields to realize the power (and necessity) of leveraging automated analysis. The movement
of our knowledge into standardized databases will allow us to leverage these analytical systems to spot gaps in our learning
that may have otherwise gone unnoticed. One can imagine a future where scientific results, even those that aren't publishable,
can contribute to standardized databases and act as data points that may be correlated with previous results or analyzed
to help provide more intelligent hypotheses and insights. Should researchers be afraid of being replaced? Not for a long
time—scientists will continue to provide the creativity. Computers will simply help us identify what we do (and don't) know.
Andrew Warren
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
E-mail: adwarren{at}mit.edu
In my view, there are two incipient trends that could have a great impact on how science is practiced during my lifetime:
open access and larger datasets. Each brings its own set of potential improvements and challenges. The growing open-science
movement has inspired the foundation of several open access scientific journals, as well as open access efforts by well-established
and highly reputable journals. A great benefit of this is that the general public can have a look at real science, rather
than just at its representation in popular press, which sometimes sacrifices accuracy for a more sensational depiction. Nevertheless,
care needs to be taken to continue ensuring a rigorous peer-review process, as well as proper funding of the journals. Advances
in (online) technology, such as crowdsourcing, have made ever greater data sets possible. The benefits in terms of greater
accuracy and potential knowledge are obvious. However, challenges arise as well. The larger the data set, the more difficult
to handle it adequately. To deal with this, new methods of storing (and sharing) data, as well as ways of selecting the
relevant information to address a specific research question, should continue to be pursued. In conclusion, more open access
and bigger datasets are trends that can, and are likely to, affect the way science is practiced in the (very) near future.
Both ways, of course, interact with each other, and, if we are willing to face the challenges they bring, are likely to
contribute to great new discoveries.
Gunnar De Winter
Bristol, BS1 3NW, UK.
E-mail: gunnardewinter.2011{at}my.bristol.ac.uk
The practice of science will not change much in my lifetime (within 50 years). Tools or techniques used in science practice
will improve. New challenges will emerge: Real scientists are losing their freedom to think and to work. Scientists will
be more influenced by human societies. Scientists' thinking power will be "caged" in a specific society, and their power
of creation and innovation will be declined. Some scientists with "successful social status" will increasingly put negative
power on new creative brains to come out. It will get more difficult and more deviated for scientists to think and do science
freely. Solutions for improving the practice of science are education. Education should be available for everybody anytime
and anywhere. The practice of science should be accessible to everybody.
Jingying Yang
Fayetteville, AR 72704, USA.
E-mail: jy2278{at}gmail.com
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