I Wish People Stop Talking About Impact

Just forget it. Please....

I hate it when something takes off and becomes a creation, because we create it. We believe it exists in our (the collective our) minds and it becomes this undeniable force. This being. This unstoppable growth. 

Impact, hmmmm. Someone, probably in the hollows of a government building somewhere, in some universe, thought it brilliant to "hold researchers accountable" for the "taxpayer dollars" they get each year. "Its time to kick them off the gravy train and ensure they are doing something beneficial to (our) society", was the prevailing thought. And so...research impact was born (not my good friends @ www.researchimpact.ca :).  

Pardon my language, but what a load of horse shit.

Now the creation is born. Impact is growing, not unlike a tumor. And now people think research is useless unless we create some value-ad process at the end that gets it out there. Connects it. Helps someone. Builds a widget.

Unfortunately we have created a new brand for research...a negative one....research is only good with a value-ad at the end.

Well, collective world, that pisses me off. I am a supporter of the faculty of research, the creative process of exploration and discovery that results from long, silent hours of being nestled deep in thought. Discovery happens from thinking. Having time to think.

So, in honour of all researchers who think and create and worry not about R&D and Metrics, here are three major, major discoveries impacting the world around us, and changed the world as we know it.

1. Superconductivity: when researchers solve the problem of operating superconductors at room temperature then we will have a transformed world. Greener energy, 10-20x the power of regular grids, levitating trains! www.cifar.ca;

2. Nanotechnology: researchers are working on nano-materials that can be inserted into the blood of a live human to monitor vitals in real-time. Imagine a SmartPhone Ap that can monitor your health 24/7?

3. Microbial Diversity and Life in a Changing Ocean: We have only scratched the surface on what we know about the planet. We only know a fraction of species and their functions, and the physical cycles they influence. We are now starting to realize that microbes play an undeniable role in the function of earth cycles/systems. Without them we would be Mars! (http://lifeinachangingocean.org)

What if these brilliant researchers and research teams weren't given the space to create? The time to think? What if they had to pay attention to partnering and collaboration and community-outreach and linkages and knowledge mobilization?

Would their research have the same world-changing potential?