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The truth this article touches on is that it's not even really about citation counts anymore, it's about dollars. Via drug companies, private grants, federal gr

The truth this article touches on is that it's not even really about citation counts anymore, it's about dollars. Via drug companies, private grants, federal grants, any sorts of money coming in from outside the university or hospital. I've sat on promotion meetings where people aren't publishing, but are bringing in 2 million dollar grants and "it's all ok". This incentive structure distorts research. What to do about it? I'm not exactly sure but having university administrations who see research as a means to make money, rather than an end in itself, is not the way.

prox 5y ago
Put controls in place. Monetary openness. Every dollar accounted for.
- rscho 5y ago
  That's possibly the worst thing that could happen to science. Academic research should not be an industry. The fact that it is now considered as such in the western world will be our downfall.
  - prox 5y ago
    From the looks of it, it already seems like an industry even it tries to appear not to. Ofcourse not all sectors will have the issue, just some (medicine, high tech for example) Putting safeguards in place is a good thing. It’s like traffic rules that people need to adhere to.
    - inkblotuniverse 5y ago
      Nothing will ever get done, but at least the busywork will be well documented!
wolverine876 5y ago
Stop trying to apply the 'free market' or capitalism to every situation. The problem is more fundamental than your field: As long as those economic tools are treated as sacrosanct, universal solutions by society in general, your field inevitably will suffer. (They are very useful tools, but like very tool, not the solution to every problem.)
kafkaIncarnate 5y ago
> This incentive structure distorts research. What to do about it? I'm not exactly sure but having university administrations who see research as a means to make money, rather than an end in itself, is not the way. A lot of the reasons of this distortion is due to the lack of funding from government in state universities which keeps going down as the cost of running a university keeps going up. Because of the rising costs, things get pushed to extremes and the accountants/administrators are put between a rock and a hard place. Depending on the university in question, it might not be just about "making money" but just not shutting the university down and trying to swim upstream in a never-ending battle.
- derbOac 5y ago
  I agree that's part of it. But I've also seen university administration proudly let state governments know that they're weaning themselves off of state funding. That can be seen in different ways, but it's clear that they've internalized the message so much that they don't push back against it at all. More fundamentally, I think the US really needs to step back to the basics and think about different ways research can be funded, and to what extent current funding systems map onto those different mechanisms. I think there's a lot of dishonesty about what is going on, in terms of how research is funded in theory versus what actual expectations or practices are, and what the consequences of all of it is.
  - kafkaIncarnate 5y ago
    That's also definitely true for universities with enough reputation and infrastructure to score large contracts/grants with private sector corporations (or mega US defense contractors). I also know of a couple of chemistry professors and one is new and his PhD was overseas in Saudi Arabia and he basically said it was just large scale brute force data analysis and discovery of chemicals in Python with a small amount of lab work to prepare the datasets. Basically there's a huge pipeline for this sort of work to discover new chemicals in labs, get a PhD out of it, but it's all just sort of an engine that functions to brute force the chemical possibilities not real meaningful research. I never asked but I assume the results just get fed into a pharma company or something. Then you have those chemists on the opposite end, ready to retire, who are working on cold fusion because why not it's interesting to study even if it goes nowhere. Our whole society has kind of turned into a giant web of a machine that can't be untangled without ripping everything apart. Some of it is stupider than others, but most of it is kind of a bullshit layer on top of a bullshit layer. We obviously see that in IT as well, with marketing tools that are just wrappers for simple underlying tech that anyone could set up. Sometimes there is significant value added, sometimes there is none (or even negative value). I don't know where I'm going with this so I'm going to stop typing.

prox 5y ago

Put controls in place. Monetary openness. Every dollar accounted for.

rscho 5y ago
That's possibly the worst thing that could happen to science. Academic research should not be an industry. The fact that it is now considered as such in the western world will be our downfall.
- prox 5y ago
  From the looks of it, it already seems like an industry even it tries to appear not to. Ofcourse not all sectors will have the issue, just some (medicine, high tech for example) Putting safeguards in place is a good thing. It’s like traffic rules that people need to adhere to.
  - inkblotuniverse 5y ago
    Nothing will ever get done, but at least the busywork will be well documented!

wolverine876 5y ago

Stop trying to apply the 'free market' or capitalism to every situation. The problem is more fundamental than your field: As long as those economic tools are treated as sacrosanct, universal solutions by society in general, your field inevitably will suffer. (They are very useful tools, but like very tool, not the solution to every problem.)

kafkaIncarnate 5y ago

> This incentive structure distorts research. What to do about it? I'm not exactly sure but having university administrations who see research as a means to make money, rather than an end in itself, is not the way. A lot of the reasons of this distortion is due to the lack of funding from government in state universities which keeps going down as the cost of running a university keeps going up. Because of the rising costs, things get pushed to extremes and the accountants/administrators are put between a rock and a hard place. Depending on the university in question, it might not be just about "making money" but just not shutting the university down and trying to swim upstream in a never-ending battle.

derbOac 5y ago
I agree that's part of it. But I've also seen university administration proudly let state governments know that they're weaning themselves off of state funding. That can be seen in different ways, but it's clear that they've internalized the message so much that they don't push back against it at all. More fundamentally, I think the US really needs to step back to the basics and think about different ways research can be funded, and to what extent current funding systems map onto those different mechanisms. I think there's a lot of dishonesty about what is going on, in terms of how research is funded in theory versus what actual expectations or practices are, and what the consequences of all of it is.
- kafkaIncarnate 5y ago
  That's also definitely true for universities with enough reputation and infrastructure to score large contracts/grants with private sector corporations (or mega US defense contractors). I also know of a couple of chemistry professors and one is new and his PhD was overseas in Saudi Arabia and he basically said it was just large scale brute force data analysis and discovery of chemicals in Python with a small amount of lab work to prepare the datasets. Basically there's a huge pipeline for this sort of work to discover new chemicals in labs, get a PhD out of it, but it's all just sort of an engine that functions to brute force the chemical possibilities not real meaningful research. I never asked but I assume the results just get fed into a pharma company or something. Then you have those chemists on the opposite end, ready to retire, who are working on cold fusion because why not it's interesting to study even if it goes nowhere. Our whole society has kind of turned into a giant web of a machine that can't be untangled without ripping everything apart. Some of it is stupider than others, but most of it is kind of a bullshit layer on top of a bullshit layer. We obviously see that in IT as well, with marketing tools that are just wrappers for simple underlying tech that anyone could set up. Sometimes there is significant value added, sometimes there is none (or even negative value). I don't know where I'm going with this so I'm going to stop typing.