So many early-career researchers (myself included) bemoan this system and it pushes many of the away from academia and towards fields where you aren't constantly playing tricks (fake co-authorship, salami publishing, over-hyping conclusions) to get ahead in a game where everyone's striving for a tiny number of badly paid jobs.
Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse
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Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse
#12>"could it possibly be … that the best way to get good research and publications out of scholars is to hire good people, pay them the going rate and tell them to do the job to the best of their ability?" Sounds very reasonable. Does anybody have good examples of this approach? I have the impression that this is similar to the environment of Bell Labs during the "golden years".
You're going to need some sort of controls, if only to kick out the folks who retire in place.
Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse
#13>"could it possibly be … that the best way to get good research and publications out of scholars is to hire good people, pay them the going rate and tell them to do the job to the best of their ability?" Sounds very reasonable. Does anybody have good examples of this approach? I have the impression that this is similar to the environment of Bell Labs during the "golden years".
A smaller-scale UK based example (which gets a mention in the blog comments) is the MRC's Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. Still very much a going concern although I suspect it's culture has changed somewhat over time.
Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse
#14This is a bunch of cool sounding scientific nihilism, but it's false. Nclb was a great attempt to manage academia and it worked.
http://www.nber.org/papers/w15531 http://www.nber.org/papers/w20511 http://www.nber.org/papers/w16745
Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse
#15While I think there is a lot of truth to this, I don't see how it can effectively be applied to our existing educational institutions. They've sort of become a self-serving bureaucracy at this point, so even without misguided policy pushing them in the wrong direction, I don't think doing the best work they can is actually their primary focus.
Naive response: Throw out the bureaucrats. Leave those with subject knowledge. Tell them to do their work to the best of their ability? Stop measuring things. Talk to them once in a while.
Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse
#16>"could it possibly be … that the best way to get good research and publications out of scholars is to hire good people, pay them the going rate and tell them to do the job to the best of their ability?" Sounds very reasonable. Does anybody have good examples of this approach? I have the impression that this is similar to the environment of Bell Labs during the "golden years".
You're going to need some sort of controls, if only to kick out the folks who retire in place.
If one were being truly radical about this, a possible solution is to replace researchers' salaries with pensions -- remove the incentive to retire in place by allowing you to retire at home if that's what you want.
Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse
#17All employers want their employees to "do the job to the best of their ability". But the freedom given to you to decide how your success is measured is proportional to your experience and past performance. There are those in both academia and private industry that get a lot of freedom to do their work/research.
But there is a hierarchy to this just like everything in nature. The exceptionally strong and bright animals have more freedom in why they choose to do and how they do it. And that system has worked to get us all this far.
The system this article is pushing against isn't fun for many but inevitable. The further you are from the top the more subject your performance is to poor evaluation schemes conceived by those far from the top too.
Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse
#18>"could it possibly be … that the best way to get good research and publications out of scholars is to hire good people, pay them the going rate and tell them to do the job to the best of their ability?" Sounds very reasonable. Does anybody have good examples of this approach? I have the impression that this is similar to the environment of Bell Labs during the "golden years".
I would agree ... nowadays ... not sure the hiring function of any institution is capable of doing this anymore ... it's sad that the good old Bell Labs days seem over ... how this impacts the future remains to be seen though ...
Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse
#19While I think there is a lot of truth to this, I don't see how it can effectively be applied to our existing educational institutions. They've sort of become a self-serving bureaucracy at this point, so even without misguided policy pushing them in the wrong direction, I don't think doing the best work they can is actually their primary focus.
Naive response: Throw out the bureaucrats. Leave those with subject knowledge. Tell them to do their work to the best of their ability? Stop measuring things. Talk to them once in a while.
What about the bureaucrats with tenure?
Re: Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse
#20>"could it possibly be … that the best way to get good research and publications out of scholars is to hire good people, pay them the going rate and tell them to do the job to the best of their ability?" Sounds very reasonable. Does anybody have good examples of this approach? I have the impression that this is similar to the environment of Bell Labs during the "golden years".
Heh, if that's all there were to it, I'd be back in academic right away! Go Speed, Go!