Fantasy Institutes unveiled - Scientiae Carnival

Welcome to ‘Now, what was I doing?’. There’s lemonade around somewhere, and at least one chair over there under those papers… and… oh yeah, THAT’S what I was doing, putting together a carnival…

For my first time hosting a Scientiae carnival, I thought it would be fun to revive an old game we played in my grad-lab, 'Fantasy Institute'. The rules of the game are simple - you have been selected as the Director of a newly endowed research institute. It is your job to decide where the institute will be based, its codes of conduct, its structure, and who you will hire. The responses are relatively few, not surprising given the time of year, but they make up for it in quality, and I am delighted to welcome a few new contributors! I will add late entries over the next week, since it is summer after all…

The new institutes are going to address some hugely ambitious and important topics, as we'd expect from scientiae participants.

The Queen Random Cancer Institute has a pretty obvious remit, but the resources sound wonderful – I too would love to work where someone’s only job was to keep the microscopes in shape! YFS’s institute has an even more ambitious remit, curing human disease, and she reckons that can be achieved in 10 years given the perfect conditions for the best scientists – click over to find out more.

Queen Random mentioned that she wanted to include ‘outreach’ and public education in her institute’s remit, but wasn’t sure how – Alyssa at ‘Apple Pie and the Universe’ might have some answers as she plans to set up an institute for science education and reachout.

Somewhat different types of institute are proposed by two newcomers to the Carnival. Frau Tech’s ‘institute’ over at ‘Design, Build, Play’ will be an engineering company with a green remit – it sounds like engineer heaven (my Dad was a Chartered Mechanical Engineer in British industry for 40 years, so we heard a LOT growing up about less-than-great environments for engineers), and James will direct the National Internet Research Council, which will have automatic access to government – James tells me that

“For a researcher in the social sciences, there's no fantasy greater than
having politicians actually listen to you.”

A post from a blog new to me, BadMomGoodMom, was recommended for inclusion as well – it begins by relating an experience with a different kind of meeting, which would actually serve as a nice model for any of our institutes - click here to read more.

Female computer scientist’s institute doesn’t specify a particular research area, just sets up the perfect conditions for great science :

“Slacking is encouraged, in order to generate brilliant ideas”.

Go over to her site for more details. This reminds me of E.O. Wilson’s statement

“good science consists largely of play disguised as work”

I think he'd fit right in...

Wishing you all a playful and productive summer, and inspiration and energy to bring a few features of your fantasy institutes into our more mundane workplaces!