On October 25, with the invitation of Graduate Student Union，Professor Poo visited our college and gave a lecture on scientific innovation.
First, he clarified several features of innovative work, including novelty, importance, continuity, integrity, uniqueness and timeliness. About the importance, he emphasized the adventurous spirit that the achievement of a scientist is proportional to his adventure. On the uniqueness, he cited the example of the DNA double helix which was published as a sheet of paper. In the aspects of the evidence, presentation and dissertation writing, it was almost a work of art. In terms of timeliness, he stressed the importance of communication of scientific research. Although communication may bring competition and result in that the present work was published ahead, its advantages outweigh the costs.
Afterwards, on learning innovation, he also gave us a few advices including exploring the history of innovative research, receiving information selectively, noting irrelevant field and communicating with people in other fields.
Finally, he proposed a question “Why do you want to attend graduate school”, finding that most of the students want to get a PhD while only 10% of students study further for learning to be a scientist. He quipped, " Perhaps this 10% of the students today is PIs in the future".
Professor Poo's speech is rich in content and is also interesting and meaningful. In the Q & A session, the students raised the problems encountered in their research and he encouraged them to learn to deal with setbacks and have fun during the experiments.
