S
tudents enrolled in MHC 360 might wonder why their instructor has left town in the midst of the semester to travel in Europe. Since at least two of my events on this trip are directly related to some of the themes of our course—how science is carried out in various places, in different kinds of institutions, for different reasons, and with different sources of support—I thought it might be useful to provide a brief description of these events in at least two installments.
Over the last couple of days, I have been serving as a member of the Board of Trustees at the Cyprus Institute (CyI), a relatively small and quite new institution for conducting research in many fields and for training graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in those fields. Although this is my first visit to the CyI as a board member, I have been visiting Cyprus and helping to develop the Institute since 2002, when some bankers in Cyprus (the island has been a financial hub historically) conceived the idea for a scientific center.
Cyprus is quite small, has a population of less than one million, and has often been politically fraught. (Even now, the country remains divided between the larger and wealthier southern side with strong ties to Greece and the northern Turkish Cypriot side.) Moreover, Cyprus is located in an unusual position in the Mediterranean, close to Middle Eastern countries and Asia Minor (e.g. Turkey) and not far from North Africa. (Most people are surprised when they look at a map and find that it is so far east of Istanbul.) Since the Greek part of Cyprus belongs to the European Union, it is the most southern and the most eastern component of Europe. And positioned on ancient travel routes, well-endowed with minerals (especially copper), and known as an agricultural and trading site for about eight thousand years, Cyprus has been a pivotal place in world history ever since history began.
For some of these reasons, bankers and other civic leaders thought that Cyprus should play a more significant role in international science, serving as a model for pursuing important scientific questions, convening scientists from many different cultures, and training young people from the region in emerging fields of science. With a small amount of money from bankers, larger amounts from the Cypriot government, and increasing amounts from funders of European research grants, the CyI has grown over the roughly ten years since its founding so that it is now composed of three major research centers; occupies several new and renovated buildings outside Nicosia, the capital city; has an annual budget of about 10 million Euros; supports a large staff that includes many junior and some senior faculty from about twenty countries; and trains over thirty graduate students (the first five of whom received PhD’s last year) and over fifty post-doctoral fellows. Moreover, unlike many research centers, little work is done in the life sciences, such as medicine. Instead, the focus is on a variety of sciences that are of special importance in this part of the world: disciplines related to archeology and cultural heritage; sciences related to climate, energy, environment and water; and computational resources that are made available to all, especially in this under-served region.
After experiencing severe financial constraints for a few years due to the recent world-wide economic crisis (a crisis that affected Cyprus especially acutely), the CyI is doing quite well. So our meetings did not need to deal with major threats to the Institute’s survival, only with the kinds of problems that most scientific institutions must face. These include recruitment of a new President, since the current (highly successful and popular) leader will soon step down; recruitment of other faculty; replenishment and enlargement of the trainee population; and efforts to increase funding from the Cypriot government, European grants, and (especially) local philanthropy (which is not as common in Europe as it is in the U.S.). Board members had a chance to visit some of the laboratories to see some of the most interesting work in progress there. You can all see some of this by going to https://www.cyi.ac.cy).
I hope everyone has a good time with Jon Weiner on Monday night!
Harold Varmus
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