Interview with Prof. Dr. Eysel
At the beginning of the newly introduced ITSC internship, Prof. Dr. Eysel took the patronage of the internship. We spoke with him about his experience, his reason for accepting this position and the importance of good scientific practice.
First of all, we would like to thank you for finding the time to talk to us. Since you have assumed patronage of the internship, I would like to ask you to briefly introduce yourself, because the majority of students in our year certainly have not heard of you. We would also like to know why you chose to accept the patronage:
The fact that you have had so little to do with me is because I am a Professor of medical science or rather neurophysiology and was not involved in your studies so far. I started in 1987 at the Ruhr-University as Professor of Neurophysiology and since then my life has been shaped by many of the things that you are planning to do in this internship now. I wrote lots of scientific papers and reviews to other scientific papers and I did a lot of management and organization of research. So these are many of the facets you are going to learn during this internship. I spent five years in the Grants Committee for Collaborative Research Centers of the German Science Foundation (DFG) and I have been on the advisory boards of many scientific institutions such as Max-Planck, Helmholtz, Leibniz and several universities In 1991 together with colleagues from the RUB I founded the research group "Neuronal mechanisms of vision", which was followed by a Collaborative Research Center called “Neurovision”. These DFG research groups were funded for a total of 18 years until 2007. I have worked in the laboratory since 1966, even until now. So I know science from more or less all sides and if I continue to work in the laboratory for another one and a half years, I can celebrate working hands on for 50 years in the neurophysiology laboratory. As I mentioned in the introduction to the ISTC startup meeting, our scientific life is characterized by working in our own field of science but also by working in the community and also to have the community work for you. The scientific community is a very interesting kind of network system where people voluntarily assure quality.
Another reason why I happily agreed to take up this patronage is the function that I now have as a senior professor at the Ruhr-University. I act as the ombudsman for good scientific practice and have to deal with cases of plagiarism and the protection of intellectual property. It is important for you to understand the principles of how the scientific community works, the importance of quality and that data are original and must be verifiable. Understanding the scientific community is not self-evident. It’s a system you can only become aware of when you are integrated into it and this normally happens after finishing your studies in your postdocoral phase. I think it is a big advantage to learn this earlier so I think your master program is a very novel and important program.
What do you think of the timing of the internship; it being held at the beginning of the Master Program?
In the Bachelor-/Master-system, I think the timing has been well chosen. At the end of your Bachelor phase you all have started scientific work and had to write your bachelor thesis. Now you are heading for more scientific work which will be the basis of your master thesis. I think this is exactly the time where scientific principles become more and more important within your studies. So, the introduction into the scientific community is placed very well. You will learn many things, which are useful not only for your studies but for different areas of your future life. Not everyone will end up as a scientist but you will benefit from every part of ITSC for example from this journalistic work where you acquire skills to express difficult concepts in simple terms. Such competences are often as valuable as to be able to perform a chemical analysis.
What do you think the characteristics of effective scientific work are?
I think the most important characteristic of effective scientific work is to be well organized. This means to be focussed to the topic of your work and to avoid to diverge too much into many different directions. But above all you should enjoy your work, because you have to demand a lot from yourself and pleasure is your best reward. Of course the effectiveness of your work will be lost if you do not follow the rules of good scientific practice. As ombudsman, I have to say that a crucial factor is your personal scientific conscience and respect to the honesty and reliability of your data. It is very important to clearly acknowledge the intellectual property. Violating the rules of good scientific practice can spoil your scientific work.
How were you introduced to the scientific community and what are the differences today?
I was introduced to the scientific community by my thesis advisor. When I wrote my doctoral thesis I chose a group at the Free University of Berlin which was extremely well known and successful. The professor leading this group had a very broad knowledge of science as well as a very clear attitude towards the definition of good scientific practice. I think this is not only the best but also the easiest way to be introduced to the scientific community because such advisors will also send you to congresses and meetings where you have to prresent posters or give talks about your data. This way you get more or less naturally introduced into the scientific community. I was a medical student and I was quite lucky because my introduction to the scientific community happened between 22 and 28 well before I became a postdoc. So that was comparable to your opportunities in the ITSC today. But of course if you are not as lucky and you have not such a good advisor and an exemplary team around you, you might have to acquire this knowledge from somewhere else, for example, in mentoring programs.
At the end of the interview, have you got any ideas or suggestions for the internship?
I think the concept is very well thought through. As you are in the first year it might be helpful to collect experience during this year and to collect some feedback whether anything can be improved, extended or shortened.