As you may already know from the Science meets Society “interview” with me (from SMS’s published German version), Sascha Vongehr has finally left the postdoctoral limbo and entered some different limbo at one of the best universities of the new international leader in science and technology, moreover a leader in my field of nanotechnology: Nanjing University (same workplace as before). Tenure track is what I am told this effectively is, and such it is for Chinese. However, foreigners have of course zero stability here and can never hope to really enjoy retirement for example - does not matter how much the university likes me if the visa officer gets a phone call from mister party secretary guy.
I am now an assistant research fellow (副研究员). The deal could hardly be sweeter in terms of both, academic freedom and the reasons for why I got this position.
I did not teach, so it is not a “look we have a foreigner and teach courses in English” kind of ‘white-meat’-deal. It is none of this “the guy brings us heaps of money” crap that nowadays corrupts academia. I do not even help with the English language. I refuse requests of improving English if I am not allowed and credited with improving the research first, my usual reply being something like “Sorry, me German, English so so badly, why not ask the guy from Pakistan, he native English speaks”. The reason for getting the position cannot be my publication record, since due to whistle blowing and critical writings, my better papers are rejected.
The reason for me getting this position is science. Those who collaborated with me do not want to see me go, as they know hands on what I have to offer. I know an amazingly large heap of science after doing little more but studying for more than 20 years and I can think scientifically like few others. I help to get articles published, my name appearing often third or fourth like that of somebody who happened to hang around at the pizza parties, but those responsible know that many projects would not have succeeded without me ripping them apart.
I am seldom involved initially. My contribution usually starts at the paper-draft stage, when most results are already in and an explanation has been attempted. That is where I come in, a secret weapon, a destructive one mostly, peer review that is otherwise unavailable today, leaving a list of what needs to be done before having another look again.
And this brings us to academic freedom: My new role is to keep doing what I was doing. Marvelous, because I was doing unpalatable quantum relativity consciousness stuff and much worse philosophy still, hardly ever to do with nanotechnology, and if related, mostly critical and thus basically not publishable. Eat my shorts all you ivory tower careerists busy writing grant applications in between preparing for conferences, forever fearing to say some wrong word to the wrong guy.
People have warned me that with my attitude, I will be exterminated from academia ten years ago. Roaches are hard to kill. Sure, they will exterminate me eventually; the more insightful I become, the more people will try to axe me, but for now, ...
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