Eske Willerslev receives International Research Award: ‘Freedom creates the best science’

Much has been written about the Danish researcher Eske Willerslev who heads the Lundbeck Foundation's Centre for GeoGenetics at the Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen. The famous professor kick-started his career in the wilderness of Siberia and is today an international top researcher with many important contributions to our knowledge of the human evolutionary development and the evolution of diseases.

Now, he receives a personal award from the Norwegian Olav Thon Foundation of five million Norwegian kroner. The award winner is selected in international competition, and Eske Willerslev receives the award for his excellent and original research which, in several respects, has developed our understanding of the human genetic origin and lately also the evolutionary traces of some neurological diseases. His research has also made significant contributions to disciplines such as medicine, ecology, archaeology and environmental science.

‘I am super proud to receive this award. You have to keep in mind that I have competed with strong and talented researchers from all over the world, so to be selected from that pile – that is fantastic, and it is a huge honour and recognition of the Centre's work’, he says.

A quick glance at Eske Willerslev's merits testifies to an incredibly resourceful scientist. But if one want success, talent and hard work need to be supported by a healthy research environment. Eske Willerslev's view of what this entails has changed markedly over the years.

‘Academic freedom is everything’

When the Centre for GeoGenetics started in 2010, it was supported by the Danish National Research Foundation and the Lundbeck Foundation. According to Eske Willerslev, these grants were the ‘most important in his life’. The grants gave him the opportunity to research the things he thought were interesting – and the opportunity to change research direction along the way without asking why, when he thought it was the right thing to do.

‘They gave me maximum freedom. They basically said that I should do good science for 10 years, and that they would leave me alone in the meantime. It was amazing. The freedom and the trust the two foundations showed in me have been absolutely crucial to my research breakthroughs. As a researcher, you are part of a dynamic international environment. You do not live in a silo. Therefore, new ideas come up all the time while old ones fall to the ground. You may start out wanting to understand issues of relevance to ecology, but end up finding that the biggest impact you can make is in the understanding of human diseases’, he says.

‘I have no doubt that total academic freedom is what generates the best research for the money, and thus also the greatest benefit for society. It is a message which, unfortunately, does not seem to attract much political attention’.

When Eske Willerslev himself became a professor at the age of only 33, he ran his research according to the same principle: freedom. Some of his colleagues at the time only wanted to admit people who wanted to conduct specific research on exactly those topics that characterised the research group.

‘My starting point was that I did not care what people researched as long as they were enthusiastic about it. So, I ended up learning lots of new stuff and doing articles and projects with committed and talented people about things that I initially knew very little about, but learned a lot about along the way. We combined our different research backgrounds and, in some cases, we even got a Science-paper on it’, he says.

‘It was a huge eye opener to see what happened when you give people the freedom to pursue what really interests them. They work a lot, and they are happy. This is in stark contrast to those times when I have tried to shove a project down the throat of someone who was actually not very interested. Nothing good has come out of that’.

Well-being creates the best science

As an experienced top researcher and professor, Eske Willerslev also believes that it is necessary to help the young students. The list of Ph.D. and post doc projects he has supervised fill several A4 pages, and he has no intentions of stopping anytime soon.

‘Part of my job at the Centre is to create the framework and opportunities for research talents to prosper. The young researchers come with refreshing input from the outside, and this means that solutions to the research tasks continue to be creative and interesting. The young researchers keep me mentally young. And when I supervise, I am involved in the work as a partner, not just as a supervisor. Certainly, it is a collaboration with people who are less experienced, but they often think out the box and question things that we oldies take for granted. The reality is that I am no better than the people I work with, no better than the people at the Centre. This may be a bit overlooked sometimes, not least when an award like this is given to a single person’, he says.

Today, research is characterised by fierce competition for research funding, and according to Eske Willerslev, it also creates a culture where selfishness may thrive.

‘I myself have clearly been more selfish and self-centred than I am today. Absolutely. When I started the Centre for GeoGenetics in 2010, my management style was also different. There was freedom in relation to the research topics, but everyday life was exclusively about the academic output. The only value I had at the time was the scientific results’, he says.

‘If someone came and asked, if maybe we could have a fruit basket at the office or do some team building, I rejected it. It was only about the research. I said, “No, no, no, that is out of the question. We need to spend the money on generating more sequence data”’.

‘Today, I am more mature and conscious that well-being is a fundamental prerequisite for the best science. Good science is not so simple that it is just a matter of pushing people and producing data. You also need to thrive on a personal level. And it is also about identifying truly committed people who are skilled and make an impression. These are the people who you – as the head of a centre – must help to blossom, so that the young people themselves can develop into skilled research leaders. That’s something I am much more conscious of today’, he says.

As a student, young Eske Willerslev met two people in particular who, unconditionally, have meant the most to his career.

‘First of all, there was my thesis supervisor Bent Christensen. He understood that research is about the totality; about the young people, the research group and, to a much lesser extent, about yourself. He was extreme as far as this was concerned, and that’s something you only see rarely today where the competition is so fierce. So, these days, when I have to make a decision, I often ask myself, what Bent would have done?’

‘In addition, at an earlier time in my education – at a time when I thought it was a drag to study – I attended the subject 'Human development history' with Niels Bonde. He was either loved or hated. He always exceeded the lessons by half an hour, but that was because he was so passionate about his subject. He was a great inspiration to me. I wanted to be like him’, says Eske Willerslev.

Still Teaching First-Year Students

Eske Willerslev himself spends some time teaching first-year students at the University of Copenhagen and both bachelor and master students at Cambridge University. He would like to teach even more at the University of Copenhagen, but that is difficult as all departments are fighting for permission to teach because this helps to fill the coffers.

‘It is an extremely important task to teach. First, you have an obligation to pass on your knowledge. It is also important that the young students are allowed to experience successful researchers passing on the knowledge they have built up. And then I enjoy teaching. The preparations for teaching add to my knowledge of the subject, and I can see the joy in the young people. It is cool when you look around the room, and although you see some sleepyheads, you see others with Christmas lights in their eyes. It is fantastic. And if I can turn on the light in the eyes of those who basically look tired and indifferent, it is a huge gift’, he says.

A Modern Faculty

Since 2019, Eske Willerslev's Centre for GeoGenetics has been part of the newly established Globe Institute at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. It is a great pleasure to work with a modern faculty with many interdisciplinary profiles, says Eske Willerslev, who is also affiliated with Cambridge University in England.

‘SUND is a unique place compared to other places I have been. They stand out, also internationally. The management and administration are super professional and skilled. It is an incredibly well-oiled organisation, and we have received a huge amount of support. It has been an eye opener for me that it can be so well functioning. We also have the pleasure to collaborate across the faculty with forensic geneticists, neurologists, dentists and protein researchers, which we would not want to be without’, he says.

His eye for collaboration with other disciplines was also crucial in connection with the Olav Thon Foundation's International Research Award. The award was founded in 2013 by the now 97-year-old businessman Olav Thon and, in the justification, it is pointed out that the Danish top researcher has precisely distinguished himself by establishing new interdisciplinary research fields.

The presentation of the award should have taken place this year at a big gala dinner, but has been postponed to next year due to corona.

Contact

Professor Eske Willerslev
ewillerslev@sund.ku.dk
+45 28 75 13 09

Press Officer Søren Thiesen
s.thiesen@sund.ku.dk
+45 28 75 29 34