They're also expected, in a research university, to raise a constant stream of grant money. a certain subset of academics are starting to figure out that this b

They're also expected, in a research university, to raise a constant stream of grant money. a certain subset of academics are starting to figure out that this becomes much easier when you invest a comparative pittance in a decent wardrobe , makeup , and good lighting so as to cast your research net extremely wide into populous rhetoric, Ted talks etc. The effort to reward ratio is fantastic as it invariably results in being contacted after your show, and it is a show, by people who have access to public outreach funds but very little understanding of the field nor your place in it, but want to be attached to whatever momentum you have and we'll throw money at you. This is multiplied several-fold when you are doing this populist intellectual dinner talk circuit in one of several countries whose elite are anxious to establish (or regain) their own scientific prestige on the world academic stage and will throw unbelievable amounts of money at the most brittle and flimsy proposals so long as there is an R1 institution attached.