(Recent travels and diverse obligations have kept me away form posting for a while; I intend to restore regularity, conditions permitting…)

A well known Chilean physicist, Claudio Bunster, has recently caused an uprising in our academic community after statements made in an interview appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA (see the article here). The most offending comment appears to be the following: “…the system of Chilean universities that, even now, he considers ‘‘little Soviet Unions’’: stolid, inflexible bureaucracies that never take risks”. The press, always on the lookout for a good fight, interviewed a number of scientists, most of who work at universities and who were outraged by those remarks (find one such article in the weekly Que Pasa, including a couple of statements by yours truly; in Spanish, sorry). Dr. Bunster leads a small research center (CECS) in the south of the country that prides itself on being free of the restrictions imposed by the sluggish university administration; his motto is ‘to lead a voyage of discovery, choose a ship of small size’.
While speaking out in defense of the university system was an obvious way to respond, some of us were cautious of extending the criticism towards comparing the qualifications of Dr. Bunster with those of his colleagues. Some insisted that the larger ships are clearly superior in terms of producing papers, often with meager budgets. However, comparing the scientific output of a University, or even a Department, with that of a center such as CECS is unfair any way you look at it. Clearly, measuring the productivity of institutions with different missions makes little sense and, in order to compare the quality of science, it would be more appropriate to do so on a per capita basis.
A balanced view should see the merit in both approaches to research. Small centers or institutes are clearly in a better position to set up new areas and gather the resources quickly for following research leads. Scientists are often “free” of teaching and of other responsibilities and can dedicate their full effort to research. They pay a price though; they often lack depth in a given field, they cannot assemble large, multidisciplinary teams and, most importantly, being away from the classroom may deny them access to students. Independent centers must have robust ways in which to ensure quality control and accountability should be centered on scientific productivity, given their “freedom”.
University researchers are right to feel unfairly treated when categorized as part of an inefficient, bureaucratic machine. Many of them do as well, or better, than scientists that belong to small centers, even though they have plenty of other responsibilities. Being one of them, I can say that we are content if we compete in a level playing field.