This session, we had a guest from the UvA: Dirk Damsma, a lecturer in economics and philosophy of science. As the title suggests, with the help of his personal and professional experience, we discussed what is wrong with academia. First, he explained the hierarchy that all researchers have to face at the university: those higher up, professors, hold a lot of power over the careers of those below, and have no problem using it for their own benefit. This means, that if a researcher still has someone above them, they are not free to choose their research topics and methods, they have to please their “bosses”.
Even though we currently hear a lot about the serious negative consequences of the budget cuts, apparently, there is a lot of “bullshit” research going on at the university, that would actually be best to stop, because it is to theoretical to result in benefits to society. However, currently, it is not taxpayers who decide what research to fund and what not to, but the decision-makers of universities themselves. Resulting from the academic career path described above, these decision-makers are the oldest, best paid professors, who will obviously cut the resources allocated to the new generations, who would potentially innovate the most, and not their own paychecks.
As the funding of academia decreases, it becomes more and more of a soulless machine designed to squeeze out as many articles as possible. The original promise of universities being one of the most important spaces for innovation, creativity, working out solutions for social issues, and in general, intellectually challenging and inspiring conversations, is becoming less and less of a reality, and only stays a promise, indeed. This not only impacts lecturers and researchers, but students, too: they no longer see universities as much more than institutions to enhance their positions on the labour market, their primary goal is to get the degree they want, and not to meaningfully engage with the material that they are taught. As both students and lecturers become more disillusioned and less committed to the ideals of the university, classes become more and more boring, reduced to occasions of one-sided exchanges of information – no more and no less than what is needed to pass exams and to graduate.
Based on these general trends, we might get the impression that while researchers have less and less of an opportunity to experiment without hurting their careers, at least the research that is done, appreciated, and funded, is of the best quality, since only the best of the best can succeed in academia. Unfortunately, not even this statement holds. As selection processes can be highly informal, popularity, marketing, and rhetorical skills can be just as important as the quality of the research. For example, using highly complicated language can be seen as a sign of the complexity of the research process itself, and not as a sign of the researcher’s incompetence to clearly explain their work. Transforming common sense notions into sophisticated theories is not a weakness, but a strength in this playing field.
One partial solution to all these problems could be the closer involvement of stakeholders, namely most of society, the public, in these processes. If funding would depend on how important and relevant the public finds different research topics and how well a researcher can explain their ideas to a general audience, there would certainly be some changes in academia. Introducing more interdisciplinarity was also mentioned, as it could help and, to some extent, force researchers to not get stuck in their own niche. For example, solving climate change is not just about reducing CO2 levels, but addressing countless imbalances in our ecosystem. But, if a researcher only focuses on CO2 emission reduction, they might not notice if their potential solutions cause other environmental issues while reducing CO2. In addition, currently, professors review the work of their PhD students, but students do not review their supervisors work, even though that might give opportunity to new perspectives.
Yet, in this system, only the students and academics with a wide enough social safety net can afford to be rebellious. So, shaming individuals for conforming to academia’s expectations is somewhat pointless and classist, as they have no choice but to focus on using their university experience to improve their opportunities at the labour market as much as possible. Under these conditions, alternative spaces like RSS can help us experience on a small-scale, how education could look like, how it could be more collective and meaningful, actually helping us solve issues in our lives.