Promotion layout
Fundamentally, the FEAT concept is the archetypical university. On the one hand, it offers young adults access to the world of science, giving them the opportunity to contribute. On the other hand, the foundation and its students share their research to companies, allowing the alumni to bring their work to fruition in their professional lives. However, there is one difference: FEAT exclusively promotes the most talented minds of the academic population, the scientific explorations of whom are “merely ”groundbreaking, in contrast to those of university graduates. FEAT has a three-pillar approach to the sustainable promotion of talented individuals that is not only adequate but also does due justice to their unique needs:
Pillar 1 : FEAT recognizes and acknowledges highly gifted individuals who, to varying degrees, lack opportunity for what they are and short-lists them as candidates. The foundation assesses these candidates to determine their needs and personality and then initiates promotional measures that are both necessary and feasible. Given the case, the candidate will transfer from the current educational institution. FEAT will offer guidance to gradually develop the candidate’s talent under its supervision by means of acceleration, enrichment and/or extracurricular research programs in accordance with the psychographic profile of the candidate. The prerequisite for the second pillar is derived from here, which, consequently, should also form part of the strategy from the onset.
Pillar 2 : Nurturing the gifts of young talents absolutely requires a highly individual approach. This makes the teacher an important link between the candidate or candidates and FEAT. Therefore, the education cooperation needs to be deliberated upon even more carefully, which calls for the candidate’s transfer from the current educational institution as already suggested in pillar 1. Ideally, the teachers of the FEAT students should be highly gifted themselves. However, as there are no means to guarantee this, a psychographic analysis of the teachers is necessary as well. This evident flaw gives rise to the necessity for the third pillar, which also calls for congenial teaching staff from the onset, that is, research directors who, in practice, are also highly gifted.
Pillar 3 : The extracurricular research programs from the first pillar are in almost perfect agreement with the need for the congenial research directors from the second pillar. Usually, suitable universities are involved in the symbiosis between extracurricular talent-nurturing activities and applied research. By definition, the universities subsist from and exist for the transfer of knowledge (mostly to the industry) and are therefore an essential link between the highly gifted candidate or candidates and their applied research. With this approach, FEAT can always draw from all three pillars and, at the same time, is flexible enough to revise any of the measures needing improvement.
FEAT scientists also work with the most talented researchers, tinkerers, engineers, and students, forming a single unified scientific team. They are committed to the previously described three-pillar approach at all times. Their research will be fueled by everyday exigencies and dovetail synergistically. In conclusion, the need for our work is not only expressed in the needs of the gifted talents we promote, but also in the dire need for research. FEAT solemnly commits to cater to both these needs.
Addendum:
It must be stressed that these pillars are merely selected features of the already highly complex work we do at our foundation, especially considering that the ambitious assimilation of the task of nurturing excellence with research work, which is as challenging as it is necessary, will invariably lead to new, unchartered scientific terrain. These and other projections of the FEAT foundation are normally carried out in a protected research environment, which is why we categorically only provide indicative fragments of information of our work.
After all, the consolidation, that is, the unification, of university-level research should be extensively based, by definition, on an interdisciplinary approach and near fruit on these grounds. Therefore, it is even more remarkable that of all institutions, it is these hatcheries termed “universities” which are substantially forfeiting human progressiveness as they move towards scientific isolation that dissipates their potential. What the universities and institutions are lacking in general is the imperative demand for cross-faculty and interdisciplinary complementary work that allows them to find a common thread to progress towards a shared research goal free from prejudice and vanity.
»Science is only good to the extent it is complementary and serves the common good. Every discipline that puts its own advantage and distinction before the common good is per se ad absurdum. This original archetype of science is the core and supreme discipline of the FEAT Foundation. «
In practice, this means that FEAT has to see its key role first and foremost in paving the way for a non- partisan and unbiased research community. To this end, we seek partnerships with capable and willing institutions for research and education. The aforementioned selection criteria for such institutions are self- evident. This pool of handpicked cooperation partners is the basis for the capitalization of the research and promotion projects of FEAT, as companies with high innovative strength will be recruited for this work group. These companies, which are always closely related to the project, are at the same time the first beneficiaries of the research findings, which are not only practical but also marketable - and therefore increase the company’s value as a whole! For that reason alone, the same companies will find themselves willing to contribute to the capitalization of the research projects supervised by FEAT - permanently!
To form this exclusive and yet in general open work group, it is first necessary to identify the highly gifted individuals. They will then progress through the auxiliary stages created for this purpose: from school to university or universities, led on by comrades who, while perhaps not necessarily highly gifted, are versed in the project and, if necessary, under psychotherapeutic supervision, until they can apply the knowledge and research they have collected during the course of the FEAT project in practice. The companies mentioned above will then bring the target results to fruition in such manner that their applicability does justice to the need that prompted the research in the first place.
FEAT mayn’t be able to shoulder the challenges outlined above independently and bearing full responsibility, but it is not necessary either. Nevertheless, FEAT plays the key decisive role in the overall implementation and division of scientific research work described above. The renouncement to subjective, biased research is the basis of this cluster of tasks and is crucial for the success of our work, motivated by mutual sharing and coalescing of our scientific achievements. FEAT is a unifying force and hub for interaction for all research projects and scientific initiatives. It is the cradle and forge of the Einsteins, Galileis and Archimedeses of tomorrow!
Enodatio:
Any remaining questions regarding the necessity and implementation of the FEAT goals can be cursorily answered with a quote from Alissa Sinowjewna Rosenbaum (Алиса Зиновьевна Розенбаум), popularly known as Ayn Rand (*Feb 2, 1905 in St. Petersburg; †Mar 6, 1982 in NY):
"Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion–when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self -sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed."
This list can be complemented with the warping of scientific careers caused by, for example, the fact that advancement depends on
-A- how often papers are published (whether they have been written by auxiliary staff or students), -B- how many sponsorship funds are raised, or -C- to what extent the research (even if dubious) can be marketed in the media, among others.
The indisputable prerequisite of our educational impetus therefore urgently demands imperious responsibility. Our foundation, established in 2016, now faces the challenge of promoting the talents of highly gifted junior research scientists in such way, without alternative, that they can find and develop effective answers to the most pressing and complex questions of our time. FEAT further intends to help restore the intellectually emaciated world, haggard from industrial and financial exploitation, with the help of people who are equally brilliant as they are endowed with reason.
Undoubtedly, by calling FEAT to life, we have chosen an arduous, albeit necessary method of contributing to the improvement of our society (Confucius: "授人以魚不如授人以漁- 维基词典，自由的多语言词典." or, to that effect: Give a hungry man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime).
Without doubt, it may not only be better publicity but also easier and vainer to prominently play the role of "Mother Theresa". However, it is these "Good Samaritans" who obtain the better and more sustainable end of the deal rather than those who are bestowed with this "short-lived" comfort. At best, social icons may idealize and even motivate others, but ultimately achieve nothing! That is to say: the almost panic longing for a "Deus ex Machina" on countless international stages has become an embarrassing and pitiful routine and has degenerated to a means for public profiling and self-gain. On that note, FEAT calls upon circumspect, capable comrades-in-arms to unite in answering to the acute needs of our time.
My recommendation: The Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus, * Dec. 8, 65 B.C., † Nov. 27, 8 B.C., betterknown as Horace, in his Epistle, I, 2, 40 f.: «Dimidium facti, qui coepit, habet; sapere aude, incipe!» In the sense of: Only those brave enough to begin can achieve. Once the task has been undertaken, its first and most important half will already be all but mastered. Do not hesitate to use your intellect! Be clever and courageous!
© LP, 11. Aug. 2017
