In this country we do not have nor have we ever had a Nobel Prize (except for two in Medicine some time ago) that is not in Literature. None, until today, in basic research or in Economics.
I interview one of Chemistry, Fraser Stoddart, who at… 81 years old! He has just been recruited by the University of Hong Kong to run a dream laboratory for an astronomical salary, which has made him decide to drop out of Northwestern University, where he captains a stellar team of young chemists, and where he achieved, already at 70, revolutionary patents in compounds that today are applied to skin care or in the extraction of gold and minerals without polluting rivers.
Stoddart repeats to me what the economists told me these days, including Nobel, Kydland and Maskin, already over 70, about their colleagues in Spain who, at the height of their career as scientists, are retired or postponed (after 60 they lose here influence and leadership). In fact, in Spain no one can continue to be active in a public university after 65 (only emeritus professors are allowed to reach 70).
Are you surprised that China and the US, on the other hand, distinguish themselves by having their creators, scientists and teachers generate value with their talent, experience and leadership for as many years as they want as long as someone, public or private, wants to hire them?
Doesn’t this flexibility have something to do with the fact that the US and China, which have the most senior researchers, are also the two research superpowers? And what if Spain and the EU languished in innovation – today they fail in artificial intelligence – for giving us more facilities to retire than to continue being productive?
My vote as a boomer takes into account the options that give professionals more freedom to choose whether or not they want to continue working – and contributing, of course, to Social Security – without being penalized for it.
After all, progress is nothing more than the expansion of our capacity for choice and everything should be easier if we choose to continue sharing what we learn beyond an increasingly relative age.
