Growth, jobs and more

The recent move by LinkedIn - that lets me enter my bibliography - could mark a beginning of a new chapter of Open Access Scientific Publishing and more. It is a small step. Today they do not even allow full texts to be attached. But if they develop the idea further, add commenting, reviewing, favoring, grouping etc. it could bring all the benefits of social networks to the exchange and evaluation of scientific ideas. It is in fact absurd, that collaboration and networking tools are much better when it comes to collaborating on your hobbies (which is not col-labor-ating ... labor as in work) then collaborating on the frontiers of science and innovation.

Here are a few paragraphs from Eisenhower's farewell radio address of 1961 (via openmarket.org ). Relevant to the general debate on the European Innovation Union and the debate in Slovenia on the Higher Education Program and The Innovation Strategy. Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity . For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and disc...