Prof. P. Ajith, International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Some questions in science are too big to be answered by a small number of individuals working on their own. It happens, in particular, when these questions push the frontiers of knowledge — for example, related to the fundamental building blocks of matter, or the origin and structure of the universe. Addressing such questions requires the use of large machines, such as powerful particle accelerators or big telescopes.
The material and human resources required for carrying out the big science projects are often too large to be borne by individual institutions and even individual countries. Most such projects are organized as international collaborations. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is a successful example of such international cooperation. Several crucial discoveries related to our understanding of the basic building blocks of matter have come out from this laboratory. Research in CERN also yielded several spin-off technologies in medicine, computing, big data, etc.
Big science often requires a multitude of talents — engineers and instrumentation scientists who would often push the cutting edge in technology to build these powerful and sensitive instruments, data analysts and statisticians who would pick up the weak signals buried in large data sets, “domain scientists” who would interpret the experimental and observational results in the context of the big questions that they are probing.
While the questions that these projects seek to address are entirely curiosity-driven, the way they operate is different from the usual “blue skies research.” The reason is the large material and human resources involved. Scientists and engineers are organized into different working groups that work on different aspects of the science and technology involved. Activities are time-bound, with targets and milestones. Successful big science projects combine the best of curiosity-driven research and an efficient and participatory organizational structure.