D Hanekom: Awards ceremony of Academy of Science of South Africa

27 October 2006

The President of the Academy of Science of South Africa, Prof Robin
Crewe
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand, Prof Loyiso
Nongxa
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Johannesburg, Prof Ihron
Rensburg
The President of MRC, Professor Tony Mbewu
Members of the Academy Council
Members of the Academy
Scientist and Researchers
Ladies and Gentlemen

Ambrose Bierce, the rather naughty writer and author of the Devil's
dictionary had two closely related definitions:
Academe (noun): An ancient school where morality and philosophy were
taught.
Academy (noun): A modern school where football is taught.

This made me wonder just for a second, whether our Academy was going to make
a specific contribution to the 2010 World Cup. This would be a most rational
and intelligent thing to do; the top eight vice-chancellors together are paid
less than our newly appointed South African football coach! The main tradition
of the modern academy movement is to recognise excellence, but not necessarily
to reward it. It is a pleasure therefore to be at an awards event that
represents the pinnacle of long-term excellence in our Science and Technology
System.

Our National Science Academy, the Academy of Science of South Africa
(ASSAf), consciously and deliberately made two critical choices when it was
first established in 1996. The first was to be a broad academy, inclusive of
all disciplines that rigorously "enquire" through empirical, open-ended
investigation and analysis. This "design principle" allowed ASSAf to leap-frog
the majority of the world's science academies, many of which are now belatedly
examining how they can broaden their scope and reach. This is of crucial
importance in a world in which multi-, trans-, inter and cross-disciplinarity
have become necessary requirements for scientific advances and technological
progress to be made.

In the realm of application of Science there has never been a closer
relationship between recent advances and economic use of new knowledge.
Inclusiveness as a design approach can prove problematic in a society where the
word "science" still has many different connotations, especially in school
settings where learners take "science" (Physical Science) as a subject which
includes only physics and chemistry. Many learners probably believe that
Biology is a lesser science and business science barely qualifies at all – but
in this they would be wrong. The new curricula may break this mould and this
will be a very significant advance.

Another problem has been the wide acceptance of the compound term "science
and technology" in national policy-making, where the general tendency has been
to perceive the term as applying only to the natural Sciences, pure and
applied. A second choice made by the founders of ASSAf was to focus the
election of members of the academy on a double rather than a single criterion,
by asking new members to demonstrate not only excellence in scholarship, but
also their interest in, aptitude for and ability to apply their advanced
scholarly skills for the benefit of society.

This was in many ways ahead of its time, as Science Academies worldwide
begin to shift their focus from purely honorific "emeritus" activities to a new
"job description", of mobilising and examining knowledge to guide policy and
practice in critically important spheres of our national life. Sir James Black,
the 1988 Nobel Prize winner in medicine, noted once: "I failed to raise support
for my medicinal chemistry project - by academic peer review standards my
proposals were altogether too wispy and expensive."

I wonder what he was trying to tell us. Perhaps he was saying that our
vision of Science and its potential is too narrow. Perhaps we need dreams and
grand challenges to galvanise our community to do great things. Many academies
are dominated by distinguished but quiescent members or fellows, as the case
may be, and this limits their ability to serve their nations to the fullest
extent in the new context. I understand that ASSAf is not free of this
phenomenon, but at least the organisation has nailed its colours to the new
mast.

Tensions may well arise within the Academy, and between ASSAf and the
Academy's partners and stakeholders both in respect of the broad approach and
the orientation to service and "academy activism", if I could call it that.
Many may question why the so-called "soft sciences" should be represented in
the academy of our country when they are not represented in the majority of
other countries, where separate "academies" for the humanities and social
sciences have often been created that go their own different ways. Many
scholars in the social and human sciences may see dangers to their well-being
from assimilation by the sometimes dominant, heavyweight natural sciences.

While the authority, legitimacy and general "clout" of an academy comes
partly from its combination of independence from vested interests,
multi-disciplinarity and professionalism, these very properties depend
critically on the high quality and earned scholarly reputations of the Academy
Membership. Some at the extreme end of this spectrum may even rely on a kind of
snobbery which assumes that a scholar who does public scientific service is
probably not a very good scholar. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Peter Agre, the chemistry Nobel award winner, used his banquet speech
concluding remarks to celebrate "the men and women who teach Science to our
children in schools". He had attained the highest level in his discipline, but
he recognised that without a society that supports the structures that make
Science possible the structures themselves are devoid of value.

The design of ASSAf is not a sort of zero sum game where sacrifices have to
be made in one dimension in order to benefit matters in another dimension, but
a deliberate choice of an academy that cares about our society and cares about
its contribution. An academy does not have to consist entirely of "pure top
scholars" in the crusty old honorific sense-it can also contain a large number
of scholars who can be "top" in both pure scholarship and its application for
the good of society, and it can profitably also contain many outstanding
exponents of "science for society" who would doubtlessly have been "pure top
scholars" if they hadn't put so much of their energies into using Science for
society's benefit. This is especially appropriate in a society which is
developing and evolving from a fragmented and highly unequal past.

ASSAf has made giant strides in the last few years, as its most recent
annual report clearly shows. It needs to become an apex organisation of
scholarship in South Africa, fitting snugly into a well-organised landscape of
science organisations (in the broad sense of that word), and a significant
contributor to national policy reflection, direction setting and
self-criticism. We are watching ASSAf's progress in this direction with keen
interest.

This awards ceremony has strong symbolic meaning. The two premier awards are
called the "Science-for-Society" Gold Medals and they are therefore explicitly
devoted to one of the choices ASSAf's founders made 10 years ago. The ASSAf/
Third World Academy of Science /Department of Science and Technology "Young
Scientist Award" is made to scholars under the age of 40 years, and in its
rules also recognises the "Science-for-Society" criterion.

The selections for these awards can be made in any field or discipline. This
illustrates the other ASSAf choice - artificiality of its apparent disciplinary
boundaries. My congratulations go to the 2006 ASSAf award winners, and to the
academy for its bold and constructive agenda.

Thank you.

Issued by: Department of Science and Technology
27 October 2006
Source: Department of Science and Technology (http://www.dst.gov.za)