Chapter 1694 - 1600: Choosing a Research Topic Matters

Chapter 1694: Chapter 1600: Choosing a Research Topic Matters

"Yes, Your Highness, the competition is extremely fierce."

In the reception hall of the Grand Trianon Palace, the president of the French Academy of Sciences, Le Roy, respectfully laid a stack of documents in front of Joseph: "In fact, Delnav and I have come precisely for this matter."

The president of the University of Paris immediately picked up the thread: "Your Highness, look, this time our university’s Academy of Sciences has only 18 doctoral slots, but both I and the professors in charge of review believe that among the applicants, at least 30 have truly outstanding qualifications..."

"We were thinking, perhaps we should give them a chance."

Joseph nodded. "Please tell me your proposal."

Delnav hurriedly said: "More people support increasing the number of doctoral students each advisor can take, for example relaxing it to five per advisor."

"What we want to cultivate are top-tier talents, so ensuring that advisors have enough energy should be the first priority. That approach is not suitable."

Joseph knew very well that in this era when communication, filing, and searching for information are all extremely inefficient, a single doctoral advisor being able to properly supervise three students is already the limit.

As he spoke, Joseph casually flipped open the file—this year’s list of doctoral applicants.

He skimmed past the applications in literature and law and went straight to the science and engineering stream.

There were a total of 146 applications, of which more than 70 had been judged by the review committee as "worth cultivating."

Yet this year all of France was only recruiting 44 science and engineering doctoral students.

Delnav and Le Roy exchanged a look, cleared their throats lightly, and continued: "Your Highness, some have put forward another proposal.

"This time, foreigners occupy 35% of the doctoral slots. If we were to appropriately reduce their proportion..."

"That many foreigners?"

Joseph turned to the next page of the applicant list and saw that among the doctoral students to be recruited by the University of Paris, the very first name was "Thomas Young."

He paused for a moment and looked at the information field after the name.

British. Twenty‑nine. Skilled in medicine, biology, engineering, physics, mathematics, astronomy, linguistics, music, fine arts... has already published influential papers such as "On the Principle of Astigmatism in the Human Eye" and "On the Wave Nature of Light"...

Joseph was certain: this was exactly the Thomas Young in his memory!

This is a top‑among‑tops kind of talent, and he has actually come to France to do a doctorate?

He could easily come to France to do research through the talent introduction program.

Joseph quickly understood: under the talent introduction program there is a stipend, but in terms of research one largely has to rely on oneself. Doctoral students, by contrast, have France’s top scholars as advisors to guide their direction and at the very least provide them with ideas.

In the information‑blocked early nineteenth century, this absolutely counts as the most precious resource. No wonder so many people are applying to be doctoral students.

Joseph looked at Delnav and said: "We want France to become the academic summit of all Europe, not a small circle that judges people solely by nationality. We need all kinds of talent and must treat them equally."

For foreigners like Thomas Young to come to France for a PhD is the best possible outcome; how could we think of cutting back their slots?

As he spoke, Joseph continued reading downward. The second name was "Carl Friedrich Gauss," followed by "Jean‑Baptiste Biot"...

When he had finished reading all 44 successful doctoral applicants, his gaze fell on Tener’s name, which the University of Paris had left outside the door. He drew in a deep breath on the spot, then nodded: "You’re right, we really should increase the quota."

This cohort of doctoral students is a complete "battle of immortals"; losing any one of them would make him feel the pain.

Le Roy said somewhat awkwardly: "Your Highness, then how should we increase..."

Joseph answered without the slightest hesitation: "Each doctoral advisor will take two more students."

"But you just said we should ensure the advisors’ energy..." Delnav got halfway through his sentence, then saw the Regent’s blade‑like gaze and hurriedly shut his mouth.

Joseph thought for a moment and said: "Implement a ’research group’ model."

"Research group? What is that?"

Recalling his own time as a student, Joseph said: "A large part of an advisor’s energy is wasted on daily trivialities and explaining relatively basic knowledge.

"A research group is meant to share those tasks, allowing them to focus their energy on steering the overall direction of the project.

"In general, a research group is led by the doctoral advisor as group leader, with other slightly less capable professors serving as deputy leaders or experimental assistants. We also need to recruit some secretaries, archivists, accountants, messengers, and so on.

"Veteran doctoral students can also guide the new ones.

"With the support of a team, it’s not impossible for an advisor to take on two more doctoral students."

Le Roy and Delnav’s eyes lit up at once.

What gives them the most headaches in daily life is tidying up documents, writing reports, or giving basic lectures and the like.

If someone were to help them with these issues, they could gain an extra two to three hours each day.

With just a few simple sentences, the Regent King had practically launched a revolution in the field of teaching!

Delnav quickly furrowed his brow again, bent slightly, and said: "Your Highness, but maintaining a research group will definitely require quite a lot of funding..."

Joseph said unconcernedly: "The Ministry of Science and Technology Education will allocate funds directly to all research groups.

"In addition, I will have the Industrial Development Fund establish an ’Innovation Fund’ to provide extra funding to groups that produce results."

In fact, spending a bit more money on these research groups is very worthwhile.

The deputy leaders in a group often study alongside the advisors; once their academic capabilities improve, they can seamlessly transition into supervising doctoral students themselves.

As for those secretaries and archivists and the like, they too can accumulate experience in project development; later, once they are scattered into the industrial system, they will all be scarce talent.

Some research groups may even produce excellent results and can directly take Innovation Fund money to start companies and push industrialization forward.

Speaking of projects, Joseph subconsciously looked at the research topic Thomas Young had chosen and couldn’t help but shake his head slightly.

He had chosen "System Energy Science."

Joseph hesitated for a moment, then said to Delnav: "Please help me pass a piece of advice to Mr. Yang: studies on light interference and wave optics may be more suitable for him."

Seriously, he was still waiting for precision length‑measuring interferometers and spectrometers and such to appear ahead of time.

Research into the nature of light also has enormous significance for the progress of basic science.

He mustn’t let Thomas Young "go astray."

The president of the University of Paris hurriedly took out a notebook and wrote it down.

Joseph then looked at Gauss’s research direction, which was "probability and statistics."

That, at least, was very solid.

Joseph was about to turn to the next item when he suddenly remembered that Gauss’s achievement in probability, the "method of least squares," has a very important application, namely "overall adjustment of triangulation networks."

This is a "Divine Artifact" used for drawing high‑precision maps.

With this method, the accuracy of current maps and the speed of surveying and mapping can be raised by an entire order of magnitude.

At present, France is laying a large number of railways. If it had high‑precision maps to assist, saving several million francs each year would be no exaggeration at all.