Early on in his career, Uri Schattner, a geologist and geophysicist at the University of Haifa, had an epiphany. While scientists are equipped with how to do their science and publish the results of their experiments, “They don’t have a method for [achieving] breakthroughs,” said Schattner. “This is not something that is taught in universities. People are taught how to do science but not how to make breakthroughs.”
As with all other topics, he discussed this with his brother Moti Shatner, entrepreneur with expertise in founding and managing startups and a lecturer at Weizmann Institute of Science. They realized that scientists and entrepreneurs face similar challenges in their careers. But there was a crucial distinction. “Scientists don’t get tools to [overcome the challenges] and the entrepreneurs get tools to do that,” said Schattner.
Uri Schattner is a geologist who also teaches scientific workflows and scientific writing.
Uri Schattner
As cofounders of the Institute of Science Disruption—a nonprofit organization that aims to promote breakthroughs and disruptions in science through practical tools including promoting innovative discussion—the duo decided to guide others to overcome the challenges they had discussed.
The output of their dialogue, published as a book How to Become a Disruptive Scientist: Methods, Skills, Breakthroughs, adapts lessons from business to the scientific field. The authors believe that this approach of evolving the startup mindset to forge new scientific workflows could empower researchers to drive breakthroughs and paradigm shifts.
The Problem of Breakthroughs in Science
Despite academic researchers pouring in their hard work, Schattner noted that the scientific field moves at a glacial pace. “Why do we see a paradigm shift every 50 years? We have so many PhD students finishing, each one of the students publish papers, why don’t we see so many paradigm shifts [more often]?” said Schattner.
These questions led the brothers down a rabbit hole, and eventually an important realization struck. “The system is not tuned to the right language,” said Schattner. While the focus is on publications, “the language should be how to make breakthroughs.”
He added that while researchers use the term “breakthrough” frequently in literature, “most of the thousands and thousands of scientific publications, they’re not really breakthroughs.” While the current metrics to measure scientific research success often include counting the number of publications, Schattner believes not many people understand what a breakthrough is.
Scientists often drive innovations, but these remain within the realms of incremental progress of established models, said Schattner. In contrast, breakthroughs disrupt established knowledge and create new realities, he explained.
When it comes to advancing the scientific field, “we’re looking under the flashlight,” said Schattner. “But we want to point the flashlight to a different direction completely.”
An Entrepreneurship-Driven Approach to Scientific Findings
When Schattner described the challenges that he and others in the field face that impede them from achieving breakthroughs, Shatner observed many parallels between these and obstacles that young entrepreneurs encountered. Both become stuck by the current mindset. “You’re in the track, in a path. You cannot look to the sides, no agility, no pivots,” said Shatner. They also recognized that science is at a junction now that startups were at about 30 years ago, further cementing the parallels between the two fields.
Moti Shatner is an entrepreneur who has cofounded and managed many startup companies and non-profit organizations.
Uri Schattner
“For startups, you have accelerators,” which equip people venturing onto this path with the mindset of creating opportunities, said Shatner. “What we thought was, ‘Let’s bring the same methods…to science.’”
This culminated in them writing their book capturing the outcome of their discussions to make it accessible to those who need it: scientists and decision-makers. According to Shatner, they start with a checklist derived from analyzing Nobel laureates and the startup world for the audience to examine how disruptive their work is followed by how scientists can aim for disruption. While pursuing serendipitous observations is one way to achieve breakthroughs, there are other paths as well.
According to Shatner, the book offers benchmarks for developing soft skills such as recognizing and creating opportunities. They not only give tips supplemented by examples to steer scientists toward breakthroughs but also guide them on communicating these effectively. “It’s an accelerator for basic science,” said Shatner.
While Schattner noted that the research environment must be conducive to promote breakthroughs, the goal is not unachievable. He added that the tips are tried and tested: He applied these approaches in his career, which he believes helped him win a leading award in the field. It’s time to pass on the torch, he said.
Schattner hopes that the practical guide he penned will help others in a similar manner. “And just think about this. Instead of a paradigm shift every 50 years, we will have [one] every five years or every three years,” he said. “And the world will be much better.”
