Successful scientists are driven by curiosity and by ego. Lay people find it disappointing when told that egos of individual scientists play a  crucial role in the progress of science. But the same people complain that their country has produced too few Nobel prize winners.

First discovery claims and disputes have always been part of science, from Newton to Montaigner (Nobel prize medicine 2008). Big ego’s and accompanying priority claims will always be part of science.

Example 1
Today I read an amusing story by Herman de Lang in the Dutch magazine Tijdschrift voor Natuurkunde (September 2009) about Millikan, the physicist who was the first to determine the charge of the electron. Robert Millikan had such a big ego that people at Caltech, where Millikan was president,  had defined the unit of vanity as the “Kan”. But to classify people on the vanity scale it was easier to use the milliKan.

Writing grant proposals is a fact of live for every group leader. This writing can be quite time consuming. Your chance of success depends on a number of factors. The factor I want to discuss here is the originality and the detail of the proposal .

New idea
Pursuing a new idea is what makes the life of a scientist fascinating and challenging. But also demanding. Just continuing one’s research on old ideas is much easier. But a new idea is very difficult to come by.  Continuation of old stuff is much easier. Grant organizations want new ideas. Supporting continuation is in our society never appreciated. ( Unless it is Scottish whisky.)  So even when you are just going to do the same research you have to package it in the form of a new idea.

Finding a suitable research subject is about the most difficult task in the life of a researcher. And professional scientists are confronted with this task continuously all through their career.

You do not want to work on a field that has existed for a long time and where great scientists have made large contributions. The suicidal defense that people bring forward when they embark on an almost exhausted field is:  “there is still so much to do”.

I suppose you have found your almost virgin territory and that it has made, or will make, you famous. You will however only make a large impression with your activities in your new field if many other people will work on this field as well. But if the field is indeed as promising as you think it is, you do not have to wait long,  and your terrain will be rampaged  by the  competition.