Thou shalt have no other gods before me

By Claus Holm, associate professor, Department of Education, Aarhus University

The Swedish Church doesn’t relinquish its hold on its members without a struggle. I learned this when one of my friends had to fill in a form confirming that he wanted to terminate his membership. He was given the following parting shot: He was told that if he left the church it would be difficult to get married in church and to have a church funeral. But the biggest risk is that he might not go to heaven. On the other hand, the church did admit that these risks should not necessarily have an impact on his decision. At least not if he wanted to avoid the payment of church tax and wasn’t particularly worried about going to heaven. And the church was also forced to admit that membership of the Swedish Church was no guarantee that he would go to heaven anyway. So who can give you this kind of guarantee? Only God, I suppose. He’s the man who decides this kind of thing. So there’s every good reason to keep in his good books.

And keeping in God’s good books was what the kings in other long-distant eras were hoping to do when they shouted “God is with us” as they rode into battle. These days the politicians shout something else (“research is with us”, for instance) when they want to inspire belief in the way Danish society can create welfare, growth and development in the future. In other words, whereas research used to be done in the service of God, it has now become the religion of the West which we worship using secular goals and means. There’s also a kind of religious war going on regarding what type or types of research we should be spending our time on.

Should we be concentrating on independent, basic research; or should we also be focusing on applied research which has obvious relevance for growth, welfare and development? This kind of either-or argument is in contrast to the idea that research constitutes a continuum leading all the way from basic research to applied research and vice versa. The latter view dominates the field at present. Also in Denmark.

For instance, if you take a quick look at the strategies of the Danish universities, you’ll see that the University of Copenhagen undoubtedly bases its activities on independent, basic research. Closely followed by Aarhus University, which has a greater tendency to attach equal weight to both basic research and a commitment to society. Whereas the core activities of Aalborg University and Roskilde University involve applied research. But despite the differences, there is also a tendency to believe that one type of research automatically leads to the other type. This is probably incorrect. It seems obvious to me that there are many good reasons why basic research and applied research must be perceived as very different phenomena. In other words: there is just as little reason to believe that basic research can always be applied, as there is reason to believe that applied research will necessarily generate basic research.

You might be good at writing reports to the authorities, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re good at writing a basic research article for a respected academic journal – or vice versa. In fact it is not only wrong to believe that this is the case. In future people would be wise not to maintain this belief. This is because there is less and less reason to believe in the political idea that the universities can simply focus on independent, basic research and expect its application to become obvious at some point. So what are the prospects for universities that are only able to carry out either basic research or applied research? They are poor. You risk either being condemned as useless by the politicians and practitioners, or being regarded as an example of poor quality by the international research community. But the greatest risk is that you will not go to heaven, because although God said “thou shalt have no other gods before me”, in the world of research these days there appear to be two gods to worship.

Tranlated by Nicholas Wrigley