ABSTRACT
The limited successes that have been recognized with the Joseph A. Burton Award contrasts with several initiatives which, in different contexts, unfortunately, did not achieve the same level of success, despite their social and scientific impact on scientific advancement, regional integration, economic development or peace. Quoting a poetry of Guido Gozzano, a 19th-century Italian poet the title of this reflection might have been “I love only the roses I did not pick. that could have been and were not been.” Actually, it sheds light on the formidable obstacles one faces when advocating science in developing countries or navigating complex political situations, and, optimistically, proposes an agenda for future work aimed to rescue those initiatives, learning from the reasons that made them lost opportunities.
The purpose of these reflections is to extract the lessons from a 45-year experience of activity as testimonial of the role that science, and physics, play to make more equitable the world at large and the society. The opportunity for this reflection has been offered by the decision of the APS Forum on Physics and Society of honoring me with the prestigious Joseph A. Burton Forum Award. The activities that have allowed me to join the impressive, fifty-years long, list of previous awardees have a common bottom line, a long-term vision. Often, and it happened also in some of those activities, external conditions may suggest that a goal has little, if any, chance of being achieved. However, the seeds can bear fruits for future harvest. The pessimism of the reason should never prevent the optimism of the will to be the compass1. This Gramsci statement well applies to the complex reality of developing countries, that share the burden of historical delays in science and higher education policies, often accompanied by social and economic inequalities which demand vigorous and difficult decisions.
Fifty years ago, to talk about high-energy physics in the Andean region could have seemed crazy. It was a delicate and difficult task to advocate, with Marcello Cini2, the right of young Colombian scientists to follow their vocation in the country, without being forced to migrate or to make research in few areas, supposedly relevant in the national context. A few years later, at CIF, the International Center of Physics, that I founded with a Colombian friend and colleague, Eduardo Posada, and with the support of a dozen of colleagues3, the crop of that seed was a small group of young physicists. Some of them would become University rectors, dean of faculties, head of departments or lead important scientific programs. And, as a second fruit, CIF promoted, with the collaboration of Leon Lederman and José Antonio Rubio among others, a broad regional commitment in Fundamental Physics4. This, also thanks to the broad HELEN program5, promoted by Luciano Maiani, Veronica Riquer, and, again, Rubio, paved the way of Andean groups to Fermilab and CERN. Now, decades later, Ecuadorians, Colombians, Peruvians are regular active participants in LHC experiments.
When I first advocated African-Latin American collaboration6, at the end of last century, it could have seemed to be a non-sense dream. Few weeks ago, it was exciting to hear Brazilian President, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, speaking at the African Union Summit, a confirmation that now interregional scientific collaboration is in the agenda. It was not considered a strange curiosity by the Dominican Government, when, last year, I decided to include it in a two-day Symposium program, looking at Gulf and Maghreb countries7. Actually, such kind of collaboration is being put in place, with the beautiful example of the synergy between the African Light Source and the Greater Caribbean Light Source Initiative8-9.
I had the fortune of being involved in a program of reconstruction of the University of El Salvador, after the civil war, and of being UNESCO’s representative to Islamic Republic of Iran, and director of the Tehran’s Office of the Organization. In El Salvador, I could, with another friend and colleague, James Vary, convene a meeting to design a Science Development Plan for Central America10. Among the participants there was a young Guatemalan, Fernando Quevedo. Twenty years later, the direct, unpredictable crop of that seed was a needed and ambitious program of regional doctorates in Central America11, but who knows how that experience was instrumental to make him a future extraordinary and visionary director of ICTP? In Iran, with Reza Mansouri, we could contribute to make possible the long-expected participation of Iranian scientists in CERN12.
These experiences were not part of my duties. This allows me to dare to suggest to whom may have in the future similar responsibilities: “Don’t be bureaucrats. Always interpret duties extensively. Be confident that your supervisors will understand. Never look at why something may appear to be impossible. Find how it can be made possible”.
However, looking back to those achievements, it is impossible to be satisfied.
The needs of the countries and the Andean-Caribbean region where I have been working for about 45 years would have required much more, and the sad side of the story is that, 45 years later, most of those needs are still there. It looks like if the out-of-time Macondo atmosphere of Garcia Marquez’s One hundred years of solitude13 pervades science policy. It is a scandal, not an amazing curiosity, that the talk I gave thirty years ago, for the John Wheatley Award ceremony is still actual14. And it is more than anecdotic that, a few months ago, I could write an article for a Dominican Republic online newspaper15, which was a plagiarism of something I had said with Marta Lucía Guardiola and José Luis Villaveces, thirty-five years earlier. at a TWAS Conference16.
Too many problems are structural. Too many Latin American countries have an economic matrix based on volatile items, tourism, services, remittances. High tech is imported, not produced nationally, even less it is object of advanced applied research, despite the popularity of a magic word: innovation. This reflects and is rooted on their scientific and education system. Science is Cinderella. It is mentioned in electoral campaigns, but rapidly forgotten the day after the election, when the attention shifts to everyday urgent problems. The average Latin American investment in science is, now as decades ago, of the order of 0.6% of the GNP17, but differences between countries are huge. The mantra goal of the mythical 2% is transmitted from a generation of politicians to another. And there are the differences within the country, social, geographical, sometimes ethnic, those between capital and small towns and villages. This makes the 2017 unanimous recognition by UNESCO of the human right to access and use Science as fundamental, remain one of those wishful decisions of United Nations, applauded in the Summit speeches, but not reflected in actions.
Science and Education are entangled. Not only in UNESCO acronym. They require harmonious policies. However, their national plans do not use to be entangled. Little is done to assess their implementation. The illusion of innovation and technological development without facing structural problems is cultivated. Nobel Prize Houssay’s warning against the pitfall of research of immediate application and (supposedly, I add) useful to the society is not part of common politician education18. Short-time actions are often politically more rewarding than creating infrastructure, be it a center of science be it an important facility. New Meliboei19, many politicians are terrified of the idea that a “brutal alien master” from an opposite political party may enjoy the benefits of their policy.
Sometimes the return of the investment is harvested decades later. Brazil entered High Energy Physics forty years ago. I remember Tiomno at Fermilab, proposing to two brilliant theorists, Escobar and Santoro to make the brave decision of moving to experimental physics. Brazil has just joined CERN as first American non-member state20. Among the possible benefits, let me just mention that, yearly, against a duty of 11 M$, it will have access to a 500M$ portfolio of tenders.
Perhaps, this may explain, at least in part, why certain proposals did not succeed, despite their goal should have been recognized as a must for a country or a region. Therefore, I prefer to talk about what could not materialize. This, not because, as an Italian XIX century poet, Guido Gozzano, wrote ”I love only the roses I did not pick, that could have been and were not been”21, but because understanding why those roses could not be picked, lessons are learned, and, hopefully, this will help me, or whoever may be, to pick those that still deserve it.
The successful creation of CIF in Colombia was due to several fortunate time and space coincidences. A visionary president, Belisario Betancur, excellent science administrators in Colciencias, the Colombian Research Council, Efraim Otero and Fernando Chaparro, a scientific community that supported the project without looking at petty individual or institutional interests. There was a generous regional vision, that led to establishing offices in Peru and Ecuador, anticipating what ICTP would have made decades later, when it created four satellite Centers in Mexico. Brazil, Rwanda and China. There were also other fortunate circumstances. UNESCO’s support through Antonio De Veciana, Siegbert Raither at Headquarters and Gunther Trapp in Caracas, and that of OAS with Athos Giachetti.
Research Centers are useful. The best assessment of ICTP impact is provided by the South scientific development during its 60 years of existence and by the centers established having it as a model. Unfortunately, the circumstances that made possible the creation of CIF are rare and there were also failures. This happened in advanced as well as in developing countries. In Spain, Gregorio Medrano promoted an intercultural center that, in some way, recalled the universal idea of XIV Century Toledo22. It never took off. After a local election, the new majority did not understand the strength of the idea. Nor was it understood when Medrano received a few years ago the Spirit of Abdus Salam Award, rare, perhaps unique, case of recognizing an unrealized idea23. In the US, the extraordinary experience of the Iowa Institute of Theoretical and Applied Physics, promoted by James Vary24, lived the space of a morning, only few years, because of cuts in the State support. Among its important lines of activity, not only science. It was pioneer in gender capacity building. In Peru, Multiciencias, promoted by Victor Latorre, could not resist the strain of the economic changes introduced by Fujimori government25.
I witnessed those cases as a spectator and advisor of these visionary friends. In other cases, again sadly too many, I was instead the promoter. It has been impossible to convince the Andean countries that a Trieste-like Center for the region is necessary, to complement those In Mexico and Brazil. Twice, I was close to succeed. In Colombia26, few days before starting to realize the project, first there was a change of rector in the University where it was going to arise, then the following rectors showed an alternating (weak) interest that did not allow to rescue the project. It remains a mystery how the political importance of such a Center in one of the most vigorously developing regions of the country, the Atlantic Coast, did not receive more than a generic attention by the local politicians. Few years later the same project was considered and supported by Ecuadorian government. The feasibility study27 was not implemented because the realization was delegated to a university, whose rector suddenly changed his mind and stopped the project, despite a diffused interest inside the institution. Also in this case, the social and economic impact in one of the less developed provinces of the country transcended the scientific value of the project, which should have deserved a more vigorous political support. These Centers belong to UNESCO’s C2C, category 2 centers. There are some twenty worldwide. In Latin America only the two I mentioned.
Something similar happened in Dominican Republic. For a project of a regional center on materials science28, the support by at least two important private universities, and its fit with one of the most developed areas of national research was not sufficient. Personal interests, or worse jealousies? Different priorities of the Government? Consequence of a higher education system in which much advanced research is made in private universities, which limits their capacity? A mixture of all of this?
Certainly, a basic problem is that limited 0.6% of average GNP investment in science, a percentage that in several Central American countries is much above reality, more than one order of magnitude. Nine years ago, during a meeting of the regional Central American doctorates, I launched a proposal, to create a regional fund for Science and Technology. It would have remained an academic provocation, had not been for the lucky circumstance that the Government of Guatemala, and its vice president, Juan Alfonso Fuentes Soria, endorsed it29. More or less approved, nine years after, it has not yet been brought to the attention of the Central American Head of State Summit.
What is missing? Diagnostic may provide different answers. First of all, the Society support. Of the whole civil society, not only of scientists. Often, scientists are biased by the (wrong) idea that science funding is rigid and that new projects mean less money for theirs.
Structures open to the society, such as a regional Association for the Advancement of Science may be more effective than the scientific societies, that, in some cases, as I had an unpleasant first-hand experience, may be dominated by small groups of mutual admiration and interest.
Moreover, not necessarily, good scientists have the vision of promoting other sectors. I had the fortune of studying in Rome. After the WWII, Edoardo Amaldi could have made Physics at University of Rome be focused only on High Energy Physics. He did not. However, promoting diversification is not always successful. An emblematic case of lost opportunity for Latin America is that of gravitational waves. They were the subject of the first CIF’s workshop, forty years ago30. The key opening speaker was Amaldi. Audience from all the region. There was no follow up. Latin American presence in their discovery has been minimal, even if very important. Nor a better fate had a second attempt, when the Italian spokeperson of the experiment, Fulvio Ricci, participated few years ago in a Dominican Republic Symposium31.
Differentiation is the only way by which developing countries science agenda may be autonomous. And the collaboration with advanced countries will not be as if they were Pygmalion’s professor Higgins or colonel Pickering. However, to make them behave as new Eliza Doolittle is not trivial32.
It is not easy to convince policymakers that by differentiating the lines of scientific development, opportunities open for that industrial and hi-tech development that only can make their country be, in the next decades, more than a tourist destination, a market and a service provider. And the same holds for the authorities of the universities, especially if private, who rarely understand that the first beneficiary of cultivating some new niche will be their institution.
Science scope is more than scientific or economic development. It includes a better society and peaceful international relations. Responsible scientists must assume a holistic civil commitment, not limited to their specialty. Often, they will be ignored or have little chance of impact. It is a fact. It is necessary to have scientific journalists, possibly with access to Tv popular channels33.
Unfortunately, for this, I do not have marvelous results to present as evidence, but I am proud of the little support I could give, advocating, on non-scientific press, the equitable availability of vaccines and the liberalization of the patents during the COVID pandemic34.
I conclude with two more experiences, based on education and science, but of a much broader scope. They could have been important. They still are. Thus, let me make a call for the tremendous challenge of their rescuing.
My first contact with Haiti was after the catastrophic 2010 earthquake. In the following years, with ICTP support, we were very close to achieve the goal of launching an integrated national plan of Education and Science. The crisis of the last few years has stopped this initiative. I am not so naïve to be not aware of the many Haiti problems, but among the conditions for any solution, a vigorous Education program is a must.
Moving to another region on which worldwide attention is concentrated, the Middle East, after October 7, the hostages tragedy, the civilian deaths in Gaza, the destruction of scientific, education and health infrastructure, it is difficult and embarrassing to imagine what science can do. Nevertheless, let me end with a word of hope.
Some thirty years ago. I met two magnificent scientists, Reyad Sawafta, from Palestine, and Avivi Yavin, from Israel. They had made a visionary proposal, a Center of Science or a University in the region of Eilat-Aqaba, where scientists of the region could work together35. I was an enthusiast supporter of that proposal. Two milestones were my participation in a UNESCO Conference in Jerusalem36, and a mission for UNESCO, together with two American colleagues, again James Vary, and Hildegard Vary37. This, and the experience of ICTP being instrumental for the development of the tertiary sector in Trieste, even led me to suggest that Gaza could instead be the ideal location for such a Center.
Obviously, this is unthinkable today. However, also the Hundred Years War had an end. My experience at UNESCO, the lesson of a great director general of that organization, Federico Mayor Zaragoza, make me a convinced ambassador of the Preamble to UNESCO Statutes: “since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed”38.
Our hope must be, and are, the young generations. I have a dream. That I can see at least the launching of a minor initiative, such as that suggested together two colleagues of Iowa State University, Joe Shinar and again James Vary - a kind of periodical Conferences, where young scientists from the Middle East may meet, know each other, perhaps work or at least create the conditions for future work, jointly39. An experience of this kind has already been possible and successful in that same region. SESAME synchrotron shows that through Science historical barriers can be overcome40.
The main raison d’être of the recognition like Joseph Burton Forum Award, so intimately related to societal development, is to motivate young people, who pursuing the same goals, may be successful where the previous generation was not. As a Latin American by adoption, I want therefore to conclude dedicating this talk to young Latin American scientists, and wish that many others join me and the 1992 awardees, those who were honored “For laying the groundwork for the agreement between Argentina and Brazil to abstain from building any explosive nuclear device”.
I cannot conclude without expressing once again my deepest gratitude to all the colleagues, of whom only few I mentioned, without whom I would not have been here. However, there is one special acknowledgment and commitment I cannot miss. My model has been Abdus Salam, and his ideal of promoting science in the developing world, in a holistic vision, encompassing science, education and peace.
I took the commitment, thirty years ago, receiving the John Wheatley Award, of pursuing further that ideal. Today, this recognition that I kept that word with APS and the Forum on International Physics makes me excited, and makes me renew that commitment.
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