The birth of the Blaumann Foundation indicates the way forward. Unfortunately, Italy lagged far behind. We prioritize basic science, cultivated in universities
the Blaumann Foundation was born in recent days, on the initiative of a farsighted engineer from Brescia, Giovanni Franceschini. The Foundation aims to support fundamental theoretical research: research that does not aim directly at applications, at developing what is already there, or at new technology based on what we know, but rather aims at understanding things more thoroughly. Ask ourselves what’s behind what we see: look for the best conceptual framework to understand reality. I am inspired by this splendid initiative for some considerations on the value of pure science and how it can be supported, because I think that we are losing sight of this value, also in the logic of the investments in progress in research.
Our civilization exists thanks to a set of conceptual tools, collectively developed. This together is our culture. The wealth of our civilization is not in material goods, in this heritage of knowing how to think and know how to do. At the end of the Second World War, Europe was in ruins and material goods largely destroyed. In a couple of decades, Europe returned to being one of the richest places in the world, because its culture had not been destroyed. Its richness was, and, in the ability to think: in its conceptual tools. Basic scientific knowledge is an essential component of this heritage: in the contemporary world it is a central part. Technology, medicine, industrial plants, aviation, chemistry, complex systems, information management, and so on, none of this would exist if not based on basic scientific thinking. a collective, shared heritage that is not static, not a treasure chest to draw on. an ongoing growth process, the unfolding of which nourishes our civilization like a deep root.
From the schools of classical Athens such as the Lyceum and the Academy, from the first European universities of the 11th century, such as Bologna and Padua, to the greatest centers of knowledge of the modern world, culture, and in particular scientific culture, linked to education. The structural link: culture grows by being transmitted and is transmitted as it grows.
Pure science was born, exists and grows because universities exist. There are also research centers, but the best of these are appendages of large universities. In my search field, for example, the prestigious Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, on campus and in fact fully integrated into the most prestigious American university.
Italy invests very little in fundamental research because it invests dramatically little in the university. It spends much less than all other countries with the same GDP on advanced education. The single Harvard University has a budget comparable to all the Italian universities. Of the 42 countries analyzed in the OECD data, Italy is almost last in terms of the percentage of graduates, ahead only of countries such as Indonesia and Brazil. The country I am in, Canada, has over 60 percent of college graduates. Around these figures are the main European countries. And Russia. Korea reaches 70 percent. Italy at less than 30 percent. We are not educating Italians. To reach the level of a civilized country, Italy must double the number of university professors from all disciplines. Among these professors, given our great scientific tradition, there will certainly be some who will make splendid pure science.
On the contrary, in recent years investment in research has been almost entirely concentrated on project funding, evaluated by committees of experts. The idea was to focus them on merit. I am increasingly convinced that this has not been good for science. Experts are – like everyone – convinced of their ideas, and they divide the funding between projects that develop their ideas, not others. Entire fields of research are paralyzed by the domination of single schools, which reproduce despite their failures. Good research is not done by spending most of one’s time, as unfortunately happens today, writing projects trying to guess what the experts on the committees will want to finance. It is done by locking yourself in your study or laboratory, discussing science with colleagues, and thinking about problems, not where to find money for students, collaborators or experiments.
There is nothing wrong with linking public and private research investments to university-industry cooperation, of course: applied research has great value. But it has nothing to do with pure research. The investments aimed at collaboration with the industries that we are making are the analogue – to steal an effective image of the engineer Franceschini – of what Newton and Maxwell would have done if instead of paving the way for the future they had dedicated themselves to improving the carriages to horses. If the government intends to invest in pure research, so will that Italy is among the countries that make culture at the highest levels, it can, but not by confusing the return to industry with pure science.
On the other hand, the centrality of the university for the growth of basic knowledge does not mean that the private world cannot and should play an important role. The great Anglo-Saxon universities have grown and thrive thanks to private investments. But they are not investments with a view to a short or medium term return. They are from people who believe in a common project of humanity and want to contribute. These days I work in one of the most important centers of theoretical physics in the world, in Canada, born from a non-repayable loan of 100 million dollars, given by Mike Lazaridis, founder of Rim, a leading company of the smartphone revolution, that of BlackBerry. This patronage is an essential aspect of the success of those countries. Whether it is the state, as in the most socialist countries, or private wealth, as in the most capitalist ones, or whether it is, as in the time of Newton and Aristotle, the privilege of the aristocracy, the basic knowledge of humanity grows when he has the possibility he believes in the value of knowledge. I think there is also room in our country for an enlightened patronage of science, and the state should facilitate this process fiscally and legally. The Blaumann Foundation, with which I opened these considerations, is a shining example of this.
The Foundation was born from the success of a Brescia-based industry, Tecnosens, specialized in sensors and measurement systems. The engineer Franceschini who founded, directed and made it grow, always passionate about the desire to know, and to ask questions, has decided to ensure the continuity of the company by transferring part of the ownership of the company itself to a Foundation. The Foundation’s statute has the dual objective of ensuring the future of the company and its growth, and of directing the parts of profits not reinvested in the promotion and support of theoretical and conceptual research in fundamental physics. The Foundation supports the research activity of groups and individual young researchers, involved in this essential, but not sufficiently cultivated, aspect of the intellectual growth of our civilization. Our society allows and facilitates the logic of profit because it hopes – rightly or wrongly – that this will contribute to the growth of the common welfare. I find it very nice that there are those who recognize the responsibility and the debt to society that derive from it. And even more so that there are those who see that the hopes for our future do not come from a little more technology or GDP. They come from more knowledge, more awareness, more individual responsibility for the common good.
The initiative
Promoting theoretical and conceptual research in fundamental physics is the objective of the Blaumann Foundation, created by engineer Giovanni Franceschini, entrepreneur from Brescia, president of the company Tecnosens spa, a leading company in the field of sensors for the measurement of physical and chemical quantities and in the sector of fiber optic lasers. At the helm of the Foundation are the president Franceschini and a scientific technical committee (Cts) made up of three eminent physicists: Carlo Rovelli (president of the Cts), Eugenio Bianchi and Guido Tonelli. The CTS will identify individual or collective subjects, to whom it will confer the status of fellow of the Foundation, and will support their research. For more information on the activities of the Blaumann Foundation, visit the website blaumannfoundation.org
March 10, 2022 (change March 10, 2022 | 9:30 pm)
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