Where are the scientists
This week I’ve spent a few days on a course with twenty other PhD researchers from various disciplines. Every time when I have such an opportunity I am impressed and touched to learn how such young people work on hard, and often life and death questions. Apart from my natural curiosity which gets something to chew on for a good while, these interactions give me hope. I should tell you about the neuroscientist studying memory and what makes us who we are, the biologist studying the “body clock” and its influence on how body heals, the doctor who studies the role of a protein in how cells recover after viruses… I should not forget about the physicist studying emergent behaviours (schools of fish, flocks of starlings, etc.), the linguist working on early identification of speech delays or the doctor from Ghana looking at methods of intervention in the community to increase the chances of survival for new born babies and their mothers.
When I leave such an environment, it is not lost on me that we do not attract these brains to financial services. It is granted that the problems these young people work on are really fascinating and important for the quality of life for so many. However, as we have seen over time and in particular in the past ten years the dramas of the financial services industry affect entire economies and there is almost no person untouched by either the austerity programmes or the distortions introduced in the social and political systems of various countries affected by tough economic situations generated by the crisis. The global financial services system not only deserves to be studied and understood thoroughly but we put ourselves at risk by not doing it.
Where are the scientists in financial services? Why there are so very few doing fundamental research in the industry?
If by I don’t know what chance of luck, you who read these rows, are now considering a PhD why not have a look at how the financial services global “ecosystem” works. You’ll be surprised but there is no book offering a good enough explanation. Take this not as a sign that the domain does not deserve proper scientific understanding but as a sign that there is a lot of work to be done. If you look for further inspiration look no further than any paper of Andrew Haldane, the Chief Economist of the Bank of England. He is a visionary in a short-sighted world.
