<TITLE: Torus/Ester Conference: On the Scenes of Science 1
ACADEMIC DOMAIN: humanities
DISCIPLINE: history of science & technology
EVENT TYPE: conference discussion
FILE ID: CDIS03A
NOTES: session includes presentations CPRE03A-D (CDIS03B and CPRE03E are part of the same conference)

RECORDING DURATION: 39 min 41 sec

RECORDING DATE: 14.11.2003

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: unknown

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 13

S1: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: female; AGE: 31-50

S2: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 51-over

S3: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: unknown

S4: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: female; AGE: 51-over

S5: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Swedish; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 31-50

S6: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: unknown; GENDER: male; AGE: unknown

S7: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Swedish; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 31-50

S8: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: unknown; GENDER: male; AGE: unknown

S9: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: unknown; GENDER: female; AGE: unknown

S10: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: junior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 31-50

S11: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Swedish; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 51-over

S12: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 31-50

NS13: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: English (USA); ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 51-over

SU: unidentified speaker

SS: several simultaneous speakers>


<S2> and the first speaker is er docent <NAME S1> from this university university of tampere department of history er doctor <NAME S1> has er s- done research among others on women history educational history , and more recently , er she's er involved in a project called scholars science universities and networks as factors making cities attractive headed by the academy professor <NAME> and doctor <NAME S1> has also wre- er three years ago if i'm not mistaken written a book on the history of this university , floor is yours </S2>

<PRESENTATION CPRE03A by S1>

<APPLAUSE>
<S2> thank you er docent <NAME S1> for keeping so nicely in time and er it's time to introduce doctor <NAME S3> er we probably have these two presentations first and after that we will have a joint discussion in my understanding , <NAME S3> er has er is a researcher of history of technology comes er from helsinki university of technology he has produced several books related to history of er technology engineering especially on engineering education , he's published a book for 50 years anniversary of helsinki university of technology , and technology policy , and er he also recently published a book on the helsinki university of technology campus area in otaniemi and if i recall well <NAME S3> was also the long the editor of the er journal of finnish society on technology and and i think <NAME S3> did very good work to improve the standard of the journal which is now <S3> thank you sir </S3> taken care of by others , floor is yours </S2>

<PRESENTATION CPRE03B by S3>

<APPLAUSE>
<S2> questions comments arguments please . professor <NAME S4> </S2>
<S4> yes er thank you very much for the presentation i think just for international audience i would like to mention that this er really this pattern you showed is is quite right and and really er it's er parallel to my research results where i have been looking er , study tours of of various professional groups like er doctors or mediciners and also decision makers in the service of towns but i would say something because i did , because you didn't continue er your data but when i have been looking for example careers just based on matricules of engineers who had been educated partly in in in in foreign countries they seems to be all around in the world until the first world war so they continued to be in europe they had jobs in in in strasbourg er er er <FOREIGN> (strassen)bankgesellschaft </FOREIGN> and and edison and and all over brighton woolcomb er so it was really like er input to this i think that you presented but but then i would like to mention that when i have a huge @uh@ not huge but anyway big database of of 400 er fi- 458 er professors and scholars unfortunately not many not many engineers but some included er and i i was sceptical about this er what what did happen when finland became independent because this means that finland was so <SIC> nationalisised </SIC> that this so to say foreign know-how it stopped and and finland just turns in like er er to i- to its er nation building process er during 20s and 30s it was not at at all that way that we have two peaks we have a peak before the first world war and then we have peak during 30s at all fields in all fields from philosophy to medicine the most journ- er most er er congress or or whatever trips er went to er to mid- er central europe switzerland germany and and nordic countries so and no-one @@ already few even then went to russia so same model you mentioned is also i would say there er it's it has some some parallels in my studies i wrote about the about this in in in the history of sciences of finland so <S3> yeah </S3> i would like to ask if you have anything any data which goes until the second world war </S4>
<S3> yeah er this what you say it is quite true this er little case study was of the educating of the professors only and if we take er for example of our chemists er , maybe 80 or 90 per cent of our chemist engineers were working in er st petersburg or in baku in the 1890s and 1810s and up to the er independence of finland er but they were not er sent by the university or or by the government they were working as individual researchers and as engineers o- of companies and so on , it is a very difficult er line to draw between er the education of of a teacher or or a scientist and a practical engineer er when you are dealing with the university of technology because one of the ma- main ideas of how do you get to be a good professor is to work as an engineer first for ten or tent- 20 years in one company but these er which i mentioned here they were especially hunted for education of academic er people </S3>
<S2> yes before i , yes over the back </S2>
<S5> okay thank you er , erm , yes there is a whole lot to be said about the mobility of of all sorts of academics and i may may i just draw your attention to a a a sort of a parallel study in sweden by göran friborg who has studied er technologists and er er and engineer and their european and international travels , er i think would he goes back all the way to the 17th century and what we can find there is is that there is a constant increase in fact there are ups and downs but er if we would continue this er after even after the second world war certainly we would have very big numbers er now er er also @one little@ observation about russia in a book that i co-edited some years ago called denationalising science we had a number of of (co-) studies on on different kinds of mobility patterns and what came out of that was that when erm er gabor palo in his paper on the hungarians he found that east european er people in the academia were moving very often towards russia and had very close contacts very , very little contact before eight- 1989 with a with a western world in many cases so this is also a political (xx) that er has to be taken into account now going back to the first paper i would like to ask a question you mentioned er many er er finnish towns and strategies and developments for er using universities and and to get them in place altogether er i know that these these days and for for quite some time there has been a fairly large in- institute sector in the in in in finland now to what what sort of a role does the institutes p- play in this erm activity in the towns that you're covering er do they have any political do they get any political attention is there a strive to get institutes into a town in the same way as you find that they strive to get universities and so on </S5>
<S1> nowadays , you [mean] </S1>
<S5> [i mean] certainly going back also er through the decades </S5>
<S1> erm yes uh there were , perhaps there were some institution and their (faculty) but there were those those (commitments) which were active and and people which were in some kind of institution er acted via this community (xx) because they were active they could (find more) commitment , er i i have not not yet any er i i i have not found any marks about institutes </S1>
<S5> mhm (xx) </S5>
<S2> other questions comments arguments </S2>
<S6> could you <NAME S3> specify the difference between the german and the swiss system here during the late 19th century i didn't get really the er point how change what were the main difference is between the german and swiss system </S6>
<S3> i can't answer that maybe er <NAME S7> <NAME S7> can answer to that </S3>
<S7> i mean i think the a- answer to this is is er very easy i don't i don't think that there was anything different maybe historically speaking karlsruhe was er the clas- first classical german speaking technical college that in germany (xx) pretty much inspired by (xx) and er what erm karlsruhe was really the the the the first german speaking which is a , then there comes marburg those together (xx) in nine- in 1854 is also i think (became) school for social science that that several famous er humanists and social scientists wor- worked i- in each , so mhm there is not not any anything difference in this respect i will have er i would take er like to take the oppot- opportunity to ask another er question <COUGH> in 1910 the technical university in trondheim norway was founded , what will you have there in the beginning is was also this model but you have very many germans germans becoming professors so the the trondheim school becomes german- germanified very dru- directly as a (xx) and it it's also question that takes you after 1908 that you have this sort of peer group you talk to foreigners to get professorships here and er if so i guess that is er probably important link for the data after 1908 </S7>
<S3> mhm during during early early years of of the institute there was quite lot of german teachers but they did not get the status of professor and er the last er german professor or teacher in our university was ernst tuchermann who was er thrown out from the country when the first world war started er he was given three hours time to leave helsinki and he went around er the baltic sea with a train to to sweden and and to germany i think and after the 1918 he came back to helsinki and tried to er get some of his rights back but that was er they were , his rights were never given back to him and er that was one of the reasons we we got er er gunnar boström to be our professor of mechanics in 18- er 1918 so for some reason when when this er univer- -versity er status was was taken or was given to to the institute they did not want there er foreigners as professors but there was quite lot of germans and swedes and er other nationalities also from cent- er central europe who were working as er , what are those <FOREIGN> tuntiopettajia </FOREIGN> teachers </S3>
<S2> other questions , yes over there </S2>
<S8> i have er one one question for <NAME S1> did you find out or do you @see any signs@ about academic resistance to new universities to er new towns or smaller towns , because i think er think it'll be or have at least have been er expanse of the finnish university system after the world war two there has been sort of a er academic resistance to establish new universities in new towns from the older universities which have a longer history er so @@ is there early is there (early) er say academic <SIC> ristance </SIC> resistance to er to new new universities er let's say before world war two even began </S8>
<S1> i told in my my presentation about the competition er er 11 10 and and it was fight and competition between these these towns all the time and uh and it was also helsinki university imperial alexander university was very important in this protest er i mean this process but the professors were against new finnish university and part of them wanted it and i i can say that the fight has (grown all the time) and there was competition as it is now </S1>
<S2> maybe that is an issue which is also not (left) unusual for today's discussions , but other questions comments or shall we have another coffee break yes </S2>
<S9> one more <S2> yes </S2> actually i have the same question as <NAME S8> but i have another one for you too , er you told us about the general model of education have you detected any kind of regional interests or unease of technological teaching in finland by the professors who first went to germany and then came back to finland , or is it hard to say if there are any </S9>
<S3> mhm no in in fact not at all the most important thing in in the teach- teaching of of the institute was that er teaching and er research done by the wood chemistry er it took most of the research money up to the 1890s and er it was sort of national programme and this gustav komppa i i showed you the picture was was the man who who kept disip- discipline up to the peak of it and er , he was able to o- , resolve the total synthesis of camphor 1903 and that was the some something er turning point to the er er finnish science of of chemistry it it showed the level that er those few finnish chemists they were at the top of of the line in in the whole world on that moment and that is only because most of the research money in the country er went went to the wood chemistry research of wood chemistry from 1850s up up to the er 1920s at least then then there was another one the power questions there was quite lot of research done of the water turbines and when electricity came they started a programme to research and educate electricians very early and everyone knows gottfried strömberg who was sent er to germany to learn er how to er research and teach electricity matters and he was the first teacher of electrical technology in in helsinki but he he (xx) short while found a company of his own and er so he left the the institute maybe these are the (xx) ones </S3>
<S2> okay thanks very much let's go and have a coffee break </S2>
<S10> i still would like to make one remind er about consulate's dinner which is er eight o'clock tonight restaurant telakka you are all invited but those of you who don't regard as themselves as speakers invited guests or ESTER students please do contact the registration desk and we are supposed to er you to buy the ticket for the dinner but you're i- all invited so please do come </S10>
<TRACK CHANGE>
<S4> are different analysis and different investigation for the swedish education and R R&D system and this institute has been set up jointly by four royal swedish academies and four research funding foundations er cur- er and he originally he he is er professor of in my opinion of history at the university of umeå and er he has also erm er been and is now on leave from er from er er umeå university er bec- because he holds the long term visi- visiting professorship at the royal institute of technology in stockholm so he has many many places to stay and about his publications he has er published widely about the about the creative milieus er some of of the publications i like to mention <FOREIGN> jorden en ö en global miljöhistoria </FOREIGN> with er anders öckerman it came out erm 1998 and the it was second er edition came out last year and er the same year he published the book about er narrating the arctic the cultural history of nordic scientific practices with sörker erm with er mhm michael bravo it came er out in USA and er he published also two volume book named <FOREIGN> världens ordning  </FOREIGN> and <FOREIGN> mörkrets i människan </FOREIGN> and that book is going to be published in in in few months next year erm ba- with name his- er european history of science and technology from 1492 to 1918 and it's in two volumes so this is certainly the book i think we we we all should should read and and learn about that book . and he's always abroad it was very difficult to get him here and now we are very pleased that we at last fa- found him and and and that he is now here so professor <NAME S5> you are most welcome to start your the floor is yours </S4>

<PRESENTATION CPRE03C by S5>

<APPLAUSE>
<S4> thank you very much professor <NAME S5> for this very challenging presentation i i'm sure that we have several questions to ask <SU> [yes] </SU> [please] . you uh okay i'm sorry </S4>
<S7> no this this er question is is is more a comment to you to your last point because i disagree strongly with with with the final words you say erm having grown up and studied in sweden but lived first er four years in norway and now five years in germany two countries which like finland has a big institute institution sector erm i wouldn't i would no- not support the this such such a road for for swe- sweden (xx) in and norway and germany i can talk but they don't (xx) here that the that er you create a situation where there are very little communication between the institutions that you research and who , who er collaborate with industry and another sector which do the do the the the teaching (where you) their their institutes are much more isolated and to go back to what you said in your theoretical background the institutes are much more isolated in in er to take the term that that i've created er creative environments innovative milieus er there are ins- institutes outside the mun- munich and (parts) mhm that been grown or have been put in the village for example so that basically there's no no er integration or communication (or) between these research institutes and and er surrounding surroundings because there is no glue there are no students who exactly (produce) the glue between the institution and and the world outside the researchers go there in the morning and go back in the in the evening this , if you really want to create environments which are si- sort of your your vis- vision (being) if you split institutes and university you will you will counteract that that (xx) i think that's exactly negative , (xx) were okay but there there should be other ways of of of er of meeting that challenge not not (xx) separate research from from er the education because that we also need i think that environments where these research institutions and universities are situated er , be that complex these that the environment will not will not develop (at that size) but it surely would keep these things together </S7>
<S5> well maybe i should a- add that er there is this clear clearly er bad examples of er of research institutes in many places er and this what you are saying here now is of course the classical argument that has been placed in the universities always against institutes er and er er which i think is o- quite often also re- er er reiterated in universities er even by people who do not share your personal experience of having lived in these countries and so on it's basically something that you learn learn er as a some go- kind of gospel er i sort of rehearsed that gospel too for many years because i didn't know anything about institutes now that i've studied er the this er sort of innovation processes in many countries and tried to find out why things work well and less well in different er social and historical context i cannot say i'm that sure anymore er there is clearly a lot of evidence that er er institutes have a role to play er recent work in norway points quite er quite clearly to the fact that they are quite important for the norwegian both economy and innovation system and they are now planning for a more thorough study of the of the institutes because when they did in norway they their evaluation of the research (council) a couple of years ago er the institutes were were sort of only marginally treated and i think the finnish example is a good good one to show that er reality is far more complex and and then i think in sweden there is also some concern that despite the fact that the (xx) had poured money into the university sector for decades just the way i show there da- it does not seem to have any positive effect on the on the innovation system the way with the money should have sort of given so er i'm really er a- i would also think it's im- important to add that that whe- when we're talking about virtues and and and vices of of different er kinds of institutions that certainly no institution could stay the way it is er the institutes in at least in sweden in many many cases are sinking in abyss they have a very bad performance and they need to be restructured and they probably would have to develop together with the universities and the firms more new kinds of relationships probably with much more particularly graduate education within the framework of the institutes and also with neutral teaching appointments and so on so isolation is nothing that i would er advocate but erm this is probably not a question that whi- which we solve here but it's apparently something where where opinions tend to go widely (afar) and i wo- would be curious to learn more about the opinions here in finland too because er if if somebody would <S4> [yes] </S4> [like to] mention something about that </S5>
<S4> may i say something i tried to find out what is the main difference between sweden and and and and finland concerning just research institutes and if i look at statistics i can find out that really er in sweden the you have you have er you don't have te- such kinds of institutes that we have that they are they are enjoying state support er we have really er state institutes a lot 10 te- 20 30 and they are very close closely linked to the research at universities but uh what i found @@ and and maybe you can you can say if i'm wrong or not but but the er the main main er main important institutes which which received er er money from from from state was really everything that's concerned the army @@ <S5> [@yes@] </S5> [@so we@] @have lot of@ lot of such type of institutes that i was wond- is it true @@ </S4>
<S5> yeah well the these (statistics) that i showed you basically <S4> [mhm-hm mhm mhm] </S4> [what they tell you is that] if you go back to the 1960s and 70s the state did in fact fund er the research institutes via the sectors not directly from the government but to the different sectors of the economy different departments er or er they they sent their money to their particular institutes this has gone down we we have a sort of mhm mhm mhm well what we call er <FOREIGN> sektors forskninges avveckling </FOREIGN> the sort of taking away of sectorial research and the academisation of that research , so nowadays as res- you're precisely right very very small sums of money move from the government to the institutes and er that is a deve- i think we have a er it can't be lowered anymore it's virtually zero er the little money that goes in that is called government fund to the institutes now is channelled through one of the research foundations the K-K foundation they give some basic support and certainly the exception is the military <S4> mhm-hm </S4> the <FOREIGN> (xx) </FOREIGN> yeah mhm </S5>
<S4> er but any other questions to- er <NAME> </S4>
<S2> if i may just comment er my experiences from finland er i have at least the the experiences that we have had this er communication technology and that related in this country very strong and er a lot of research development effort on that area in practice it has meant at least in the field of engineering that some of the traditional engineering fields have been just left aside without practically any resources anymore so i think there's a very big risk that if we concentrate er too much resources to certain areas then it is very risky on the long run and i'm just wondering i'm really afraid of the er er college the future engineering college what are they going to do in the future if and when the CT will not be that successful in the future </S2>
<S5> mhm </S5>
<S4> it was just a report may i say something just a report what what is the status er and and <SIC> prognose </SIC> of of science and technology in finland it er the er book published or evaluation published the er two weeks ago and there we had i was in the it was a seminar and there was exactly <NAME> the same discussion that construction engineering has (xx) and and and that er i think it's all over now people are more aware what is going to happen for this but i would like to ask @before anybody else want to ask@ when you erm er you emphasised so much this cultural sector and if we are looking at the at the really erm er funding er research money going to to different sectors so i think culture is loser and and we know how important it is how you can really turn those <SU> uh-huh </SU> turn this development other way around because if culture and humanities let's say at universities don't get so much funding than than engineering or technology what what we can do then in the future </S4>
<S5> well i i hope you picked up the message that er culture here is not just what is being spent on theatre or research in art history and things like that it's rather it's this that it's also a general cultural and social fabric of society at large they hang together i think in a certain sense i what i would like to say is that we have been concentrating in this research far too much on the output side of the research institutions this is truly important and it's not just a matter of having things pop out of the research institutions it's also matter of what is the society surrounding it that is going to take care of all these things that er B-A students be their research results whatever they are and that's cultural that's a cultural thing if that m- <FOREIGN>  mentalité </FOREIGN> if that s- social fabric surrounding it doesn't work , then we will have problems making use of all this er that we that we @produce from the laboratories@ and and then we are talking about other policy areas and maybe maybe the circumstance i'm saying that maybe there has been too much emphasis @on this particular@ in this belief in in er in in in in R&D i mean R&D is just one little , piece but they have a wide impact </S5>
<S4> mhm okay thank you and <NAME S11> </S4>
<S11> yes i am also fascinated of the map you showed us about geography er also about the establishment of new (xx) er between 1990 and 1996 er stockholm (xx) and if if you want to make the similar map from say around 1970 i think you would have found different results </S11>
<NS13> in the (xx) (papers) or </NS13>
<S11> stockholm <NS13> yes </NS13> it's it's (xx) important part and we'll have er high figures for umeå but we also for linköping , <PLACE NAME> perhaps or and some our er basics cities which are industrial but er (enjoy) university or a college status , and er because i think we might (xx) more about the climates or educational (response) the educational systems er we have er (xx) if we look at the er economy we can say that er if we look at the (xx) educational system up until (xx) there are all sorts of students today we have almost the same revolution out of er of the working force and (xx) structure about educating (xx) system about late 90s and which we also had certain years ago , so what , the map for year 1990 and 1996 (there is) is the expansion of the er the producer service sector which has increased enormously , so er i think er maybe universities is a giant (force in) swedish economy probably (finnish as well) but the educational system in total has not been this engine for for economic (xx) </S11>
<S5> mhm yes well er you you you might certainly be (xx) there and i would certainly not argue that that every period is the same , different regions have their ups and downs if we could take a er longer term er state er er these those international results by varga and others that i'm referring to seem to suggest that all the long term b- b- bigger regions fare pretty well in the knowledge economy er and er whereas there are particular problems for the small and medium size er areas they will have to sort of @struggle more@ to survive in in this we've had concentration periods er er in other previous periods of of of history i mean going from agriculture to industrial society meant big reshuffle of populations and demography there seems to be a new reshuffling going on and er er it would certainly be different in southern europe than in northern europe for example s- simply because of er of of higher population densities in the south but some patterns seem to occur in those places and and er at least from what i can tell in in the scandinavian countries er including finland this seems to be the pattern and the kind of (xx) the barriers to to this that for example in norway we're quite strong after the 1980s don't seem to be (xx) norway any more either so we we can of course say that all this is because of universities or because of R&D or simply because of some kind of new (xx) that we call the knowledge economy but at the end of the day politicians simply (xx) strong regional tensions and that is because some regions in this kind of economy are retarding and going back and it's it's really a strong debate in sweden right now i don't know about you in finland but but even the prime minister now says that this he says i don't really agree @@ but he says this is our greatest problem the the regional tensions and they they have come up although it's probably a long term several decades but they have become acute in the last eight to ten years </S5>
<S4> mhm-hm thank you very much i think we have we have to finish this <APPLAUSE> i would like to give the floor for our next speaker , erm for e- <NAME S12> docent <NAME S12> who just came after driving long way from lappeenranta where he is now employed as a as a research as l- as a rel- director of the research institute so we will er hear somebody who is really working in a research (field) and he has er published widely about techno- history of technology and about engineers for example i can mention that that er er that er he has written about the history of of school of economics in helsinki as well as about the the er national technological research institute in helsinki and al- also published books on ras- rationalisation in finnish society , and i i hope that you your your your presentation will handle , erm social technical research (configurations) </S4>
<S12> thank you </S12>
<S4> welcome </S4>

<PRESENTATION CPRE03D by S12>

