Abstract
Science, and specifically scientific innovation, has become a strong driver of modern economies. This has had profound implications as how we support scientific research, and how we try to drive the scientists themselves, and focus them, toward specific goals which are relevant to our present-day problems, or market opportunities. However, this tends to distort, and in fact even destroy, one of the major engines behind innovation: Free Scientific Curiosity. How much focus and how much freedom should be left in a scientific research institution is a key factor for innovation. The speaker will present what has been learned at the Weizmann Institute of Science on this topic, and the conclusions drawn.
About the speaker
Prof Daniel Zajfman received his PhD in Atomic Physics from Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in 1989. He was the postdoctoral fellow at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, USA between 1989 - 1991. He is currently the President of Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot as well as the Chairman of HEMDA, Center for Science Education in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Prof Zajfman's research interests include Atomic and Molecular Physics, Molecular Dynamics, Atomic and Molecular Structure, Ion Trapping and Ion Storage Rings, Cluster Physics, Molecular Astrophysics, Interstellar medium, Popularization of Science, Philosophy of Science. He is the author of more than 100 scientific papers in the peer-reviewed scientific literature and two teaching books in physics. He has spoken in more than 50 scientific invited lectures.
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