Professor after rejecting record grant: A scientist has to be their own biggest critic

Two years ago, Mart Loog secured a €15 million grant from the Council of Europe to develop Estonia's biotechnology landscape. However, last Friday, Loog abruptly resigned from his position as a professor at the University of Tartu. According to Loog, the global situation has changed significantly over the past two years and fundamental research in biochemistry no longer has a future in Estonia.
Loog told Postimees that he had drafted a new project but began to doubt its feasibility and communicated his concerns to his partners. The University of Tartu decided to continue with the project, removing him from its leadership. In an interview with ERR, he remarked that he has since left the field of science. "A scientist must be their own harshest critic. If I see a flaw, I have to critique myself, not defend myself," Loog explained of his decision.
Loog noted that he has been active in his field for 35 years, traveled to the United States and observed how the world has changed. "Science operates like the stock market. Nvidia shares drop when the Chinese do something different. Those who invested billions lose their money overnight," he compared. Now, he sees that compared to two years ago, synthetic biology and industrial biotechnology are also declining fields. "When I spoke to you, there were billion-dollar investments in these areas. But now, if you look at the stock market, these companies have fallen significantly," he pointed out.
The €15 million grant awarded to Loog two years ago, from which he was not removed, was intended to establish a biofoundry in Tartu — a facility for digitalized and robotized cell system development. However, during visits to San Francisco and Singapore, Loog heard from biotech sector colleagues that their biofoundries are struggling with a lack of work. "We learned a lot at the grant's scientific council meeting. Representatives from Imperial College's biofoundry said they are the only ones with enough projects. Even Edinburgh's facility is struggling to break even," Loog observed.
Additionally, Loog argued that Estonia's geopolitical environment does not favor the development of the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. "If you look at the war in Ukraine and our proximity to it, do you think any pharmaceutical company would come within 40 kilometers of the Russian border to develop a new drug?" he questioned. Consequently, Loog believes Estonia is overproducing biotechnology graduates given the changing circumstances. "As a scientist, I must responsibly analyze my opportunities and take a stance so that young people don't assume they'll have jobs in ten or twenty years," he explained.
The end before the beginning
The new project, worth €2.5 million, was officially set to launch on February 1. The grant system required Mart Loog and his co-applicants to provide accountability on how the biofoundry, built with the grant funds, would be utilized. "If we don't use the biofoundry and fail to meet the project's goals as promised in the grant agreement, the funding simply won't be reimbursed — it will end up in deficit," he explained.
According to Loog, he submitted numerous applications for projects that would provide work for the new biofoundry. "It's my responsibility to keep it operational as a business model because the Ministry of Education has stated that no additional funding will be provided after five years," he added. Loog managed to secure projects for the fledgling biofoundry, but other project partners were not particularly cooperative in using the facility, which was the core objective of the initiative.
He approached a Finnish partner with the proposal to return the grant before the project's start. "The European Commission directly told me that my actions were absolutely the most ethical," he noted. Following this, the University of Tartu decided to remove Loog from the leadership of a new project intended for the biofoundry.
The university wants to continue the project and does not wish to return the funding. Rector Toomas Asser said that Loog expressed his wish to step aside in writing. According to the rector, the project can go ahead exactly as planned, adding that Loog was a co-coordinator rather than the project lead.
"I have received no confirmation from the project lead in terms of its unfeasibility or suggestions it is pointless. Based on this, our wish has been to move forward," Asser noted.
Education and research expert Jaak Aaviksoo said that returning funding in this manner would be quite extraordinary. "I'm not aware of any precedent in this volume and at this level. /.../ The most honest and direct approach would be to try and negotiate the conditions with the funder, whether to reprofile or end the project, either fully or in part."
Research in Estonia too random
Mart Loog believes that strategic decisions were overlooked in Estonia's higher education system during the 1990s. "Some countries selected two or three priority areas to focus on, but here we ended up with a fair amount of confusion around all those projects," he recalled. According to Loog, researchers in Estonia, including himself, developed basic research fields based on what they happened to study during their postdoctoral work abroad. "We thought we were building a new Finland or Singapore here, but we experienced a brain drain. No one wants to return and people continue to leave," he said.
On the other hand, looking at the United States, Loog sees that the boom in basic sciences has been replaced by the rise of engineering. "You can study the entire universe and everything is fundamentally fascinating, so to speak, but at some point, financial limits come into play," he pointed out. In the Estonian context, he referred to comments made by the new president of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, Mart Saarma, who noted that Estonia's economy has been struggling for four consecutive quarters. "How long are we going to do blue-sky science here? Our country is on the brink of bankruptcy," Loog remarked.
In his view, Estonia should have invested in Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) decades ago. "Then we wouldn't hear complaints from industrialists about the lack of engineers," he said. Currently, however, Loog believes Estonia is over-educating individuals who end up working for American pharmaceutical companies. "Talented doctoral graduates finish their studies in America. Their children speak English. I had hoped they would return, but I see that this either isn't happening or is happening very little," he noted.
The article was updated to add comments from Toomas Asser and Jaak Aaviksoo.
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