Graphene flagship
The ways to finance scientific research in Europe become increasingly creative. The creativity increases certainly faster than that of scientific research. We will have Future and Emerging Technologies Flagships. Six of them have been preselected, two of them will go to high see, four will have to sink directly in dockyard: free competition is free competition. Ships, that is, collections of research groups with common interests and goals, are huge: perhaps only Soviet cold-war-era military research corporations could compete with those.
From the six, the graphene flagship looks most reasonable to me: not from the point of view of a physisist, rather, from that of middle-aged taxpayer. Perhaps I’m too old to believe that science will create Guardian Angels with zero-energy consumption, perform a full computer simulation of human brain and fill the world with helping robots that as soft as teddy bears (I’m not mocking here, I’m citing). Perhaps too young to channel my money into “a revolution in healthcare”. Perhaps too cinical to finance creation of “platform to support decision-making of policy-makers, business people and citizens”. I believe that yellow (web) press does provide such a platform already, and does it without my money.
Jari Kinaret, a Chalmers theorist with recent interests mostly in nanomechanics, will lead the vessel: brave and responsible of him. He came today to Delft to meet Dutch scientists interested in graphene, tell about the ship and listen to us. I’d certainly like this concorcium and wouldn’t be against the boarding the ship.
The only thing is that “boarding the ship” in current circumstances of financial and societal uncertainces remainds me movies of my childhood about events taking place in Crimea in 1920. No I won’t tell (now) about Crimea of that time, since it is not in tone with optimistic meeting of today.
Let her set sails!
