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Creating Products, not Knowledge - Rise in Engineering Role for Industrial Physicists

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Creating Products, not Knowledge: Rise in Engineering Role for Industrial Physicists

(Professor Charles Duke, Physics & Astronomy)

by Zhengqing Qi & Lois. H. Gresh

January 19, 2007: A Task Force commissioned by the American Physical Society (APS) in 2006 reports that there is an increasing divergence between the roles and needs of industrial physicists and the physicists in academia and government. According to the Chairman of the Task Force, Professor Charles Duke of the University of Rochester Physics Department, who is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, "We have a future in which industrial applications of physics and industrial physicists are increasingly important."

In the past, the role of physicists in industry was quite often the same as the role of physicists in academia and government. Industrial physicists were engaged in research similar to the research done in academia. A changing economy has demanded that industrial physicists assume roles normally associated with engineers. According to Professor Duke, "The task force identified an emerging schism between physicists employed in academia and government, who create new knowledge, and those employed in industry, who use that knowledge to create new products and services. It analyzed the nature of this schism and made eight recommendations to enable the APS to serve better its industrial physicist members."

The Task Force recommended that the APS provide greater support for industrial physicists though increased communication, a greater database of information, and higher incentives through new APS prizes and awards. This additional support for industrial physicists could lead to faster and more efficient designs of new devices, economic growth, and inexpensive and higher quality products.

The importance of physicists employed in industry comes from their value in stimulating economic growth, creating new job sources, and also linking physics to the economy. With an increasing value placed on industrial physicists, the fraction of physicists with PhDs employed by industry has increased from 36% in the 1950s to 56% in the 1990s. Nevertheless, the Task Force found a decreasing participation of scientists from industry in the APS and other professional societies. The total percentage of APS members from industry is now only 20%. There are few prizes and awards available for industrial physicists, and roughly 70% of the industrial physicists who belong to the APS also belong to a professional society other than the APS. Publications in APS journals by industrial physicists are rarely seen, few attend meetings hosted by the APS, and even fewer participate in APS governing activities.

The Task Force assisted the Committee on Membership in constructing a survey of industrial APS members to pinpoint the reasons for the decline in participation, and it found that most industrial APS members require access to physics information beyond what is in APS journals. Industrial scientists prefer the web, email, and telephones for communication. Those who join the APS primarily want access to the journals Physics Today and APS News.

One of the Task Force's eight recommendations is to set up a web-based network similar to www.facebook.com or www.myspace.com to connect the physicists. This online network would help stimulate communication and also provides a way to search for physicists in different fields. Another recommendation is to offer a variety of "bundled journal" services that allow various levels of access to journals published by different professional societies. Implementing this idea would allow industrial APS members to access far more information and articles though a single APS membership. Another key recommendation is to increase the number of awards and prizes aimed at industrial APS members.

Duke also offers the following observation of relevance to academia: "The employment of PhD physicists is increasingly in industry as opposed to government and academia. Therefore, the jobs for which universities prepare its graduates probably need to change, as well." This is also emphasized in a November 5, 2006 statement by the APS council that "physics departments are urged to examine their programs in the light of scientific opportunities, societal challenges, and broadly available careers."

Additional Details

For further details, see:

APS career statement and information:
http://www.aps.org/careers/index.cfm

APS news article about this report:
http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200611/industry.cfm

For more information, please contact:
   Professor Charles Duke
   Email: aed22cbd@frontiernet.net
   Faculty Webpage: http://spider.pas.rochester.edu/mainFrame/people/pages/Duke_Charles_B.html

This article was co-authored by Zhengqing (Zhen) Qi as part of the curriculum of PHY 396, Supervised Science Writing I, Spring 2007. Zhen is a sophomore Physics undergraduate and a member of the Society of Physics Students.

On March 23, 2007, this article was the top story in "Hot Science" on the National Website of the Society of Physics Students at http://www.spsnational.org/news/hotscience.htm.

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