Let's be honest. Academia these days is floundering. In the STEM world, real scientific advances are being stifled by the replication crisis, toxic environments within labs, PHD burnout, and the politics of grant writing. Research into breakthroughs such as immunotherapy and RNA vaccines ends up being overlooked where it could otherwise have impacted millions of lives.
The humanities front, meanwhile, is plagued with issues such as the lack of empirical and quantitative research, erosion of neutrality, lousy standards on research quality, and a single-minded adherence to ideology. They stifle research into everything that's off the party line, leaving us with a poorer understanding of our society and culture.
From both sides, the ivory tower is caved in by extreme politicization, censorship, the silencing of minority views, the tenure caste system, authoritarian and bloated administrations, grade inflation, credentialism, and entrenched discrimination that keeps college presidents occupied with lawsuits, Department of Education investigations, and Congressional hearings.
All these problems are symptoms of a failing elitist system that gatekeeps access to ideas, inquiry, and research. Thus, America cannot solely rely on academia in order to preserve its innovative edge.
I propose the creation of a new kind of organization - a nonprofit research studio - and a lean research governance system to shepherd it. These two new constructs will complement the existing academic system, while focusing on academic freedom and supplying solutions tailored for commercialization or remixing into broader culture. These organizations will be run more like startups than the traditional top-down English department or biochemistry lab. This means that anybody within them is empowered to propose ideas and drive research, with continuous metrics and an agile process serving as the heartbeat of the organization. Volumes have been written on how to organize a lean startup to reach product market fit and scale. Research studios can apply a similar concept.
But how will these research studios be funded, incentivized to produce quality research in interesting/societally important directions, and vetted? This is where the lean governance system comes in. Instead of the closed and heavily bureaucratic structure of a university, the lean governance system is an open system. This means anybody can start a research studio (with some funding caveats).
Grants are the lifeblood of research right now, and the federal government pours billions into the old ivory tower hierarchy. This fundamentally misaligns incentives to promote incremental, "safe", fundable advances, with no reward for taking on risky research or overlooked directions. To stand up our studios, some of this funding should be diverted to provide them with an initial cash injection. To prevent a complete run on government money, this amount will be capped and limited to those with 4 years of post-secondary education or equivalent experience. And now the best part. Research studios will be permitted to solicit outside funding and commercialize their research to their hearts content. This means licensing patents, publishing books, banding together to publish research journals, forming partnerships with private / political / non-profit orgs, etc. The market decides which ideas are winners.
To establish some ground rules and prevent total havoc in this new research system, the lean governance system will have a democratic leadership elected by the research studios themselves, which can form into Westminster-style coalitions that would replace the siloed departments in the old ivory tower. This leadership will set standards and regulations for research studios, determine which core fields get additional funding, monitor research journals, etc. One of the benefits of the old academic system was peer review. Rigorous scientific and literary standards will be established that are completely neutral and objective in evaluating research quality.
What is the end result of all of this work? No system is perfect, but I believe that by creating a space where anybody can engage in a battle of ideas against other individuals and groups, the best ideas will rise to the top. Instead of being shut down and relegated to obscurity, one can take a risk on a risky research direction and hit the jackpot. Innovation will inevitably be squeezed out as different research studios jockey for influence, whether that is in making money, fundraising, collaborating with other research studios, or getting into coalitions to influence governance. This will produce a Darwinian effect with results that will be highly competitive with the old academia system, and relevant to society at large. I hope we can see more foundational reforms to America's innovation ecosystem in the future. This is how we as a country will keep our edge in a rapidly changing world.
Posted on Sat, 20 Jul 2024.