Toespraak van minister Bussemaker bij uitreiking Student Research Award

Toespraak | 26-11-2014

Dear students,

In a few minutes we’ll start presenting the awards. The Poster Award. The Honourable Mention. And the Student Research Award twenty-fourteen – the jackpot.

But whether or not you are one of the lucky ones, all of you have made a real contribution to science. And in doing so you are standing on the shoulders of all those researchers who went before you, and who started out in the same way. Researchers whose curiosity prompted them to ask a question, and who often had no idea where their investigations would take them.

Physicist Andre Geim could never have known that a levitating frog would be a stop on his path to the Nobel Prize for his research into graphene.

And a failed experiment by chemist Stephanie Kwolek resulted in the development of Kevlar, which is now used in fire-fighters’ boots, body armour and in aerospace applications.

Developments like these have convinced me of the importance of free and independent research for achieving new and exciting insights. And for forging creative and unexpected links. At the same time, science is far too important to be left to chance. Since time immemorial, science has been our key to prosperity and well-being – our key to a better world.

To ensure that this remains so well into the future, this evening in Rotterdam State Secretary Sander Dekker and I will present science vision twenty-twenty-five: choices for the future.

This vision is the result of many reports, studies and analyses, and of a great many interviews with researchers, administrators, businesses and citizens.

Naturally, everyone has their own priorities in such a process. Nevertheless, everyone agrees on three things.

Young scientific talent – that’s you – requires the right conditions to develop and reach its full potential.

Science needs to be linked to society and the business community to have maximum societal impact.

And Dutch scientists – you can count yourselves among them as of today – must retain their leading international position. Multidisciplinary collaboration is the best way to achieve that goal, both nationally and internationally. Certainly in this day and age. After all, we are faced with complex problems that have multiple causes, which is why the solutions will have to come from multiple angles.

Take the Ebola epidemic, for example. It’s not just a medical problem. The disease is disrupting entire societies, causing economies to collapse and destabilizing the political situation. Schools in a number of countries have been closed for months. Tourists are staying away, airlines are losing money and hospitals worldwide are prepared for the worst.

Of course, the Ebola outbreak demands a response from medical science. But also from the behavioural sciences, for example to help us gain insight into how people respond to information from the government, and also into the African culture, to understand how ebola influences society and and can be fought most succesful. Or for pointers on making sure that tourists know these countries are open for business once the epidemic has passed.

Other complex issues, such as sustainability and security, also require scientists to venture outside of their own academic field and sector. Moreover, new scientific insights and discoveries often take place precisely at the intersections between sectors and academic disciplines, peoples and countries.

I received my PhD in political and socio-cultural science from the University of Amsterdam in nineteen-ninety-three. Among all the individuals I encountered during my PhD programme, and later while conducting research at Harvard, I recognized a common theme.

The drive to push the limits of what is possible and to imagine the unimaginable every single day. And a keen interest in other people’s fields of endeavour.

This is where true science begins.

With this in mind, I very much hope that you will remain faithful to your own ideas in your work. And that you will dare to experiment and explore. Science is a rational subject, but willingness to trust their intuition can also be an important factor in helping scientists arrive at new insights.

And the really good scientists are often those who do not obediently jump through all the hoops. If you want to make a real difference, don’t go for quantity by being just another name on the list of co-authors. If you want to make a real difference, if you really want to make the world a better place, then apply yourself to research that can only be conducted thanks to your special expertise and experience. And your universities can support you in this. So please... keep surprising yourself. And remain inquisitive. You’re off to a good start with the research that you’ve presented here today. Great work, and you all deserve a big round of applause.

And now it’s over to the jury.