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27 October 2006

The President of the Academy of Science of South Africa, Prof Robin Crewe
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand, Prof Loyiso Nongxa
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Johannesburg, Prof Ihron Rensburg
The President of MRC, Professor Tony Mbewu
Members of the Academy Council
Members of the Academy
Scientist and Researchers
Ladies and Gentlemen

Ambrose Bierce, the rather naughty writer and author of the Devil's dictionary had two closely related definitions:
Academe (noun): An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught.
Academy (noun): A modern school where football is taught.

This made me wonder just for a second, whether our Academy was going to make a specific contribution to the 2010 World Cup. This would be a most rational and intelligent thing to do; the top eight vice-chancellors together are paid less than our newly appointed South African football coach! The main tradition of the modern academy movement is to recognise excellence, but not necessarily to reward it. It is a pleasure therefore to be at an awards event that represents the pinnacle of long-term excellence in our Science and Technology System.

Our National Science Academy, the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), consciously and deliberately made two critical choices when it was first established in 1996. The first was to be a broad academy, inclusive of all disciplines that rigorously "enquire" through empirical, open-ended investigation and analysis. This "design principle" allowed ASSAf to leap-frog the majority of the world's science academies, many of which are now belatedly examining how they can broaden their scope and reach. This is of crucial importance in a world in which multi-, trans-, inter and cross-disciplinarity have become necessary requirements for scientific advances and technological progress to be made.

In the realm of application of Science there has never been a closer relationship between recent advances and economic use of new knowledge. Inclusiveness as a design approach can prove problematic in a society where the word "science" still has many different connotations, especially in school settings where learners take "science" (Physical Science) as a subject which includes only physics and chemistry. Many learners probably believe that Biology is a lesser science and business science barely qualifies at all – but in this they would be wrong. The new curricula may break this mould and this will be a very significant advance.

Another problem has been the wide acceptance of the compound term "science and technology" in national policy-making, where the general tendency has been to perceive the term as applying only to the natural Sciences, pure and applied. A second choice made by the founders of ASSAf was to focus the election of members of the academy on a double rather than a single criterion, by asking new members to demonstrate not only excellence in scholarship, but also their interest in, aptitude for and ability to apply their advanced scholarly skills for the benefit of society.

This was in many ways ahead of its time, as Science Academies worldwide begin to shift their focus from purely honorific "emeritus" activities to a new "job description", of mobilising and examining knowledge to guide policy and practice in critically important spheres of our national life. Sir James Black, the 1988 Nobel Prize winner in medicine, noted once: "I failed to raise support for my medicinal chemistry project - by academic peer review standards my proposals were altogether too wispy and expensive."

I wonder what he was trying to tell us. Perhaps he was saying that our vision of Science and its potential is too narrow. Perhaps we need dreams and grand challenges to galvanise our community to do great things. Many academies are dominated by distinguished but quiescent members or fellows, as the case may be, and this limits their ability to serve their nations to the fullest extent in the new context. I understand that ASSAf is not free of this phenomenon, but at least the organisation has nailed its colours to the new mast.

Tensions may well arise within the Academy, and between ASSAf and the Academy's partners and stakeholders both in respect of the broad approach and the orientation to service and "academy activism", if I could call it that. Many may question why the so-called "soft sciences" should be represented in the academy of our country when they are not represented in the majority of other countries, where separate "academies" for the humanities and social sciences have often been created that go their own different ways. Many scholars in the social and human sciences may see dangers to their well-being from assimilation by the sometimes dominant, heavyweight natural sciences.

While the authority, legitimacy and general "clout" of an academy comes partly from its combination of independence from vested interests, multi-disciplinarity and professionalism, these very properties depend critically on the high quality and earned scholarly reputations of the Academy Membership. Some at the extreme end of this spectrum may even rely on a kind of snobbery which assumes that a scholar who does public scientific service is probably not a very good scholar. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Peter Agre, the chemistry Nobel award winner, used his banquet speech concluding remarks to celebrate "the men and women who teach Science to our children in schools". He had attained the highest level in his discipline, but he recognised that without a society that supports the structures that make Science possible the structures themselves are devoid of value.

The design of ASSAf is not a sort of zero sum game where sacrifices have to be made in one dimension in order to benefit matters in another dimension, but a deliberate choice of an academy that cares about our society and cares about its contribution. An academy does not have to consist entirely of "pure top scholars" in the crusty old honorific sense-it can also contain a large number of scholars who can be "top" in both pure scholarship and its application for the good of society, and it can profitably also contain many outstanding exponents of "science for society" who would doubtlessly have been "pure top scholars" if they hadn't put so much of their energies into using Science for society's benefit. This is especially appropriate in a society which is developing and evolving from a fragmented and highly unequal past.

ASSAf has made giant strides in the last few years, as its most recent annual report clearly shows. It needs to become an apex organisation of scholarship in South Africa, fitting snugly into a well-organised landscape of science organisations (in the broad sense of that word), and a significant contributor to national policy reflection, direction setting and self-criticism. We are watching ASSAf's progress in this direction with keen interest.

This awards ceremony has strong symbolic meaning. The two premier awards are called the "Science-for-Society" Gold Medals and they are therefore explicitly devoted to one of the choices ASSAf's founders made 10 years ago. The ASSAf/ Third World Academy of Science /Department of Science and Technology "Young Scientist Award" is made to scholars under the age of 40 years, and in its rules also recognises the "Science-for-Society" criterion.

The selections for these awards can be made in any field or discipline. This illustrates the other ASSAf choice - artificiality of its apparent disciplinary boundaries. My congratulations go to the 2006 ASSAf award winners, and to the academy for its bold and constructive agenda.

Thank you.

Issued by: Department of Science and Technology
27 October 2006
Source: Department of Science and Technology (http://www.dst.gov.za)