Withering Academia?

Well, at least it would make a fine movie set

Banks come and go (do we know it), as do governments, and even the longest-lasting dictatorships; even countries tend to disappear now and then. But academia, a term encompassing not only universities but also academies, research institutions and the like, has proven remarkably durable.

Our associated alma matter, the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, is over 500 years old. And that makes it a toddler in comparison to, say, the Universities of Bologna or Oxford, which are already scratching their first millennium.

And yet, asserts CESifo researcher Bruno Frey in his latest CESifo Working Paper, there are many signs that academia, as it exists today, could radically change and even disappear.

This may seem surprising, given the rapidly increasing number of students flocking to universities, the huge financial resources lavished upon them by governments, the high reputation they enjoy across society, and their enviable list of achievements.

To make his point, Mr Frey lists six aspects that currently contribute to the withering away of academia, which his paper examines from the research perspective, not the educational one.

The first is that the substance of scientific research matters less and less. Today, he rightly points out, the importance of a scholar or a scientific idea is defined by rankings; they seal the fate of professors, departments, and even whole universities. Rankings are based normally on the quantity of scientific output. If they stoop to consider quality, they count the number of citations—again a quantitative measure and, worse, one that disregards, for instance, the fact that a piece of research may be cited copiously precisely because its conclusions are wrong. (Mr Frey wrote a very good criticism of rankings in his CESifo Working Paper 2443, and on their effect on scholarly behaviour in CESifo Working Paper 2594.)

The division of labour, while beneficial, has a darker side when it comes to research. In economics, for example, one scholar collects the data, a second undertakes the econometric analysis, and a third interprets the results and writes the paper. Nowadays, single authorship has become an exception. Realistically, none of the individual researchers can confidently judge whether his colleagues have done their work carefully and sincerely. While output is more rapid and efficient, the overall picture can be lost to the individual author.

Mr Frey sees here an analogy to the financial meltdown. Bankers giving mortgages to homeowners had little to do with the bankers constructing the respective derivatives or with the traders selling them to other banks and the public. Few bothered to consider the systemic risk produced. And see where that led.

A third aspect is that publication pressure has strongly increased over the past decades, a subject Mr Frey discussed in depth in his CESifo Working Paper 2594. This exerts an influence on the subjects studied, the methods used, the type of collaboration, and even leads to a sort of “academic prostitution”, with scholars willing to revise their papers according to the wishes of the referees even if they know that they are plainly wrong. Such practices undermine the claim of academia to pursue true knowledge.

A fourth aspect is the rise in academic misconduct and fraud. The pressure to publish, and to secure a career past that of assistant professor, has already pushed some researchers to cheat. Other contributing factors are the negligible expected punishment for fraudulent behaviour, while the academic institutions where cheating scholars work have an incentive to suppress the fact that fraud took place because their reputations would take a hit. Furthermore, the sectors outside academia have little interest in what they consider internal scholarly disputes. Needless to say, this may taint the high reputation and the almost “sacred” nature of scientific research to the point of contributing to, as Mr Frey puts it, “a meltdown of academia.”

A fifth aspect is the aggressive sales pitches and lowering of standards universities have engaged in to attract as many paying students as possible, the pernicious effect of which will only be visible in the long run. The high reputation of a university is undermined by having too many students of lower quality.

The sixth and final aspect is the fact that the existing organisational form is no longer adequate for the way academic activities are undertaken today. Scholars no longer need to be at a particular university in order to benefit from a research environment. They do not even need the facilities of their own universities; the libraries, for instance, are readily accessible over the internet. Scholars nowadays may belong to various universities at the same time. As a result, both with respect to research and teaching, the traditional universities have lost much of their traditional functions.

Mr Frey acknowledges, however, that it would be mistaken to assume that academic activities will vanish and all science will fade away. Nonetheless, if the above arguments hold, the institutional character of academia will be transformed quite fundamentally. In particular, the trend towards large, well-funded university campuses and huge research centres with the concomitant buildings will disappear.

Some of these trends may be self-correcting.  Rankings will lead to more rankings, to rankings of rankings and so on, until it dawns on everyone that numerical evaluations of academic research lead nowhere, prompting people to return to focusing on the content of science. The division of labour in research may be countervailed by the appearance of “specialists on systemic effects,” who would focus on understanding the overall picture.

The emphasis on quantitative publication and mechanically structured qualitative measuring will likely end when it becomes clear that it does not create the most insightful scholars. A step in this direction may be the acceptance of open-access publications on the internet with minimal or no referee intervention.

Intriguingly, Mr Frey ponders on the benefits of anonymous publication of scientific contributions. After all, he reasons, it does not matter who wrote an article, but only whether its content enlarges our knowledge. He cites such well-regarded anonymously authored articles such as those of The Economist, or flourishing publications such as Wikipedia.

The loss of relevance of rankings and lessening of publication pressure may have another welcome side effect: scholars will have fewer incentives to cheat.

As regards the term “university,” Mr Frey points to how it has been diluted over time. In many countries, lower-level institutions may bear that name, although their research performance is not of the same standard as traditional universities. For scholars, in turn, the reputation of the university in which they work will be less important, their own prestige depending more on their personal achievements.

Finally, the existing universities, with their campuses and buildings, are likely to be gradually replaced by virtual identities taking up the role of a “scholarly community.”

This is not necessarily a pessimistic assessment. Academia in the broader sense, as “the locus of seeking truth and learning through methodological inquiry,” will continue to subsist in different forms, because it performs a vital function in society. Still, the transformation is expected to be fundamental, and to occur sooner than one might think.

Bruno S. Frey:Withering Academia?, CESifo Working Paper No. 3209

• Other CESifo Working Papers by Bruno S. Frey
• Other CESifo Working Papers dealing with rankings
• Other CESifo Working Papers dealing with academia
• Other CESifo Working Papers dealing with publications
• Other CESifo Working Papers dealing with universities
• CESifo Working Papers published in the past three months