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10. Realising the vision
The widespread adoption of a declarative modelling approach would involve major changes in the
working practices of a large number of researchers, the reward systems for academic achievement
currently in operation, and in funding priorities. Some of these we can perhaps anticipate but, as
with any technological revolution, other totally unexpected consequences will emerge. In this
section I offer some preliminary thoughts on some of the issues, reflecting informal discussions
with colleagues. This should serve merely to open up discussion - and even then we need to
accept that technological change brings about institutional change, whatever our views on the
desirability of such changes!
10.1 Voluntary or mandatory adoption?
Conceivably, funding bodies could insist that modelling within the projects they fund be done
according to certain standards (declarative or otherwise). Commitment to this could be a required
part of the proposal, and a criterion for evaluating the project on completion. There are
precedences. In the UK, funding under the current (2002) e-science initiative requires a
commitment to the Globus toolkit for Grid projects, rather than (for example) the Europeandeveloped
Unicore system [see URLs].
Alternatively, researchers might adopt a modelling framework just because they want to, in the
same way that they will publish their papers on the web without anybody telling them to do this.
For this to work, the new approach must be manifestly better than the old.
A mandatory approach, though unpalatable to some, can be justified in societal terms: taxpayers'
money is being spent, and they can rightfully expect us to maximise the return on this investment,
and to use this money efficiently. We would not, I think, claim that a researcher has a right to
spend time programming standard statistical tests when perfectly good packages exist for doing
this, so there is no reason why someone should spend months programming a model if it can be
built more efficiently through some other method.
However, in practice I believe that researchers will adopt improved methods for modelling out of
choice - because there are many pressures on their time, and because they wish to have maximum
impact on the rest of their community. ng in the opposite direction...
10.2 The research award system
Academics, and the institutions they work for, are assessed on the basis of two main criteria:
publications and research income. Currently, any new model can be written up as a paper, or
even a modification of an existing model - regardless of the fact that the paper rarely gives a
complete specification of the model, and hence is not reproducible without obtaining the source
code.
Declarative modelling offers the prospect of making it much easier to construct models, to
incorporate other people's models in one's own, and to disseminate information about the structure
of models. This is likely to reduce the emphasis on the journal paper as the primary mechanism
for presenting models to the rest of the community, leading to a need to find other ways of judging
the contribution made by researchers who are involved in the modelling process.
10.3 The possible emergence of de facto standards
The widespread adoption of a modelling framework requires that people accept and work to a
standard. There are two ways in which this standard can arise. One, considered next, is by the
adoption of a de facto standard, resulting from the widespread use of a particular software