Science, Scientists, White Coats, and Ambling About

Now that the Association has introduced a system through which it is licensed to award the Chartered Scientist designation, some Members have been busy going through their personal libraries for the evidence to support a successful application. Not surprisingly, such searches can turn up nuggets of useful information, as well as the desired certificates. The first matter to be addressed by an applicant is likely to concern the definition of 'scientist' in our industry, and one such gem has emerged, dating back nearly 50 years.

"Industrial scientists ... are normally graduates in natural science or engineering, who have had additional training as junior members of a team in a laboratory concerned with basis research or the development of innovations. They are valuable – both in their own eyes and as a matter of objective contemporary fact – because they stand at the centre of a constant three-way interchange of information about basic discoveries, about manufacturing processes, and about users' needs. They become members of this group, this triple system of communications, by virtue of a tested ability to speak and understand the 'languages' in which these three sorts of information are conveyed, and to translate between them. These qualifications, this membership, are of the essence of their job. If they did not have their roots outside industry, industry would not get from them what it needs.

"But the converse of this semi-detachment is the scientist's sense – amounting to a claim – of special, professional, extra-industrial status. He feels himself to 'belong' less to the firm he works for than to a distinctive professional group whose boundaries, within which he is (or feels he should be) free to move, extend over universities, the technical colleges, and Government service; a group which is growing in numbers, very much in the public eye, and very conscious of its importance and of the scarcity-value of its contribution. By the same token he can ask for and get a salary invidiously far above those ruling for managers of equal seniority and equal or higher nominal standing. Less tangibly, but from the point of view of establishing status no less effectively, he often tries – and this is where his 'cultural peculiarities', his 'foreignness' come in – to snap his fingers at the factory's idea of normal, proper, conventional behaviour. He can 'amble about in a white coat, come and go as he thinks fit' – with the unspoken justification that scientists are subject to bouts of inspiration which may keep them at work into the wee small hours. He need make no secret of the fact that accepted leisure pursuits and entertainments and works sociabilities bore him. The arts graduate in general management, probably equally accustomed to working in his own time and equally bored, must learn to soft-pedal his idiosyncrasies and to accept the prevailing code of the firm; not so the scientist. He can actively cultivate them – not only as a matter of genuine preference but as a deliberate way of affirming his separateness and superiority." 1

It is not part of our remit to consider the conclusions that were reached from this study, nor to reflect on the political and social changes which have dated some of the comments. Nevertheless, the distinct (and distinctive) position of the scientist in the industrial hierarchy highlighted in this study is worth reflecting on.

For those Members who have already embraced their unique character through peer-review, the rewards of scientist status are self-evident. For those still struggling with the concept, the encouragement of more senior Members is a very good tool for advancement.

Construction Products; Assessment of Dangerous Substances

The Association has been invited to contribute, as the representative of the surface coatings industry, to a new Technical Committee (B/557) set up to shadow the work of a proposed CEN Committee. The work of these committees potentially affects all the 500 or so harmonised product standards which support the Construction Products Directive. 2 'Harmonised' standards are those which require products made under them to be quality marked with a 'CE' mark, and are called up in national legislation through documents such as the Building Regulations.

There doesn't appear to be much scope for the products of the surface coatings industry in the group of standards which have arisen from the Construction Products Directive; surface coatings are not 'construction products' within any vernacular definition. Nevertheless, the aspirations of those who wish to bring surface coatings within the ambit of the Directive are venerable, and firmly entrenched. The question of whether the Association should accept the role requested of it is therefore as much a political as a technical decision. The view that it is in the interests of Members that the Association does not take up the invitation is one which has been promoted, although this can hardly be said to have been a collective decision.

Members wishing to represent the Association on B/557 should contact in the first instance gensec@occa.org.uk. The scope of the committee is: development of horizontal standardised assessment methods for harmonised approaches relating to the release (or content when this is the practical solution and/or when this is legally required) of regulated dangerous substances under the Construction Products Directive, taking into account the intended conditions of use specified in technical specifications for construction products. It addresses emissions to indoor air and releases to soil, surface water and ground water.

References

1. 'Human Problems of Innovation' p23-25. Honor Croome. 'Problems of Progress in Industry No 5' published by the Ministry of Technology, HMSO 1960 [Return ]

2. Construction Products Directive 89/106/EC [Return ]

British Standards are available from BSI, 384 Chiswick High Road, London W4 4AL, or from the Association at 1st Floor, 3 Eden Court, Eden Way, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire LU7 4FY, UK