Aspirational description of the NHETC
The character of the NHETC is intellectual independence and rigor. Faculty are selected for independence, originality, leadership, and for their distinctive outlook on physics and mathematics. The NHETC provides them with the maximum possible freedom to pursue their ideas, especially the freedom to take intellectual risks. Postdoctoral associates and graduate students are educated to become independent thinkers who will follow their own compasses to move the field.
The NHETC tries to avoid intellectual conformism (as much as practical). It aims to be a place where people have a measure of freedom from the pressure to conform to the scientific crowd, freedom from the pressure to work on popular problems, freedom from the pressure to follow the authorities in the field — a place where trying to make new ways of thinking and research directions are encouraged.
This means having extremely high standards in people, seeking intellectual excellence combined with a risk-taking exploratory spirit, always looking for people who have a real possibility of finding something new and interesting and fruitful, people with the independence, vision, and originality to make good use of the freedom provided by the NHETC.