158
research has served to introduce fresh ideas into the division; it also ensures
that those researchers who take on this ‘social service’ do not take time off for
their personal research, for the pressure to keep up in the competitive world
of research is well known.
I must stress that heads of divisions really must abandon their research
owing to the full-time dedication required for the task of organizing things for
the benefit of others. They are to be greatly thanked. An extreme case was that
of Carlos Martínez, who was the first head of instrumentation and later for
many years Deputy Director of the IAC, a permanent support to the Director
responsible, among many other things, for taking on the thankless and
monotonous, but fundamental, tasks of administration and management.
Many thanks, Carlos, from me personally and in the name of the IAC.
Endogamy must always be guarded against. It is all too comfortable to get
used to people who work well with you, who did their theses with you, even
though they might lack brilliance, people who have devoted years to doing
the routine and dull repetitive tasks associated with observational research. It
is hard to make way for somebody better from outside, but it has to be done
in order to survive in this so competitive and inhumane world.
Fig. 16.3 Leading astronomers who lectured at the 1995 course in Tenerife organized
by the IAC. The lectures were gathered in the volume The Universe at Large (Key Issues
in Astronomy and Cosmology), published by Cambridge University Press. (Credit:
Miguel Briganty/IAC)
F. Sánchez
research has served to introduce fresh ideas into the division; it also ensures
that those researchers who take on this ‘social service’ do not take time off for
their personal research, for the pressure to keep up in the competitive world
of research is well known.
I must stress that heads of divisions really must abandon their research
owing to the full-time dedication required for the task of organizing things for
the benefit of others. They are to be greatly thanked. An extreme case was that
of Carlos Martínez, who was the first head of instrumentation and later for
many years Deputy Director of the IAC, a permanent support to the Director
responsible, among many other things, for taking on the thankless and
monotonous, but fundamental, tasks of administration and management.
Many thanks, Carlos, from me personally and in the name of the IAC.
Endogamy must always be guarded against. It is all too comfortable to get
used to people who work well with you, who did their theses with you, even
though they might lack brilliance, people who have devoted years to doing
the routine and dull repetitive tasks associated with observational research. It
is hard to make way for somebody better from outside, but it has to be done
in order to survive in this so competitive and inhumane world.
Fig. 16.3 Leading astronomers who lectured at the 1995 course in Tenerife organized
by the IAC. The lectures were gathered in the volume The Universe at Large (Key Issues
in Astronomy and Cosmology), published by Cambridge University Press. (Credit:
Miguel Briganty/IAC)
F. Sánchez