I am not only a critic of academia, I have also been working constructively to design an alternative system that is based on the foundations of human behaviour. Behaviour based policy and system design in a relatively novel concept but many academics have started talking about it and certain behaviour based system designs are implemented on a pilot scale and some even in real life. Interestingly none seems to have thought about behaviour based design of academic systems. I made an attempt in a document that I have opened up for everyone here (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G7Ugv0Wo4gONBQsoTaX_-ggUgTH4ju6A/view?usp=sharing ). This is for sharing, with or without credit. Plagiarism or any version of it is also welcome, all that matters to me is that it is shared widely and read with interest. It is not necessary to agree with everything. In fact a wide and open minded debate on every possible platform is most welcome. I only expect that the debate is not only based on opinions and anecdotes. I have tried to support my arguments with data, whenever possible. The debate also needs to go on the same lines. Fortunately today there are many published studies that are useful for this purpose. Wherever there are gaps in data, let that also surface so that someone may be stimulated to collect data and provide better evidence.
My perspective is mainly from India, so the document addresses the problems of Indian academia mainly. But most of it is applicable for any non-mainstream science country and much of it is applicable to the mainstream as well.
The document first describes the serious flaws, malpractices, misconducts, bad incentives, imbalances and unfairness in the academia as of today. Science appears to have been monopolized by a handful of power centers and its dissemination throughout the world is prevented by the design of the science support systems themselves. The ideal structure of science support systems should be such that good science can be done and published from any corner of the world. The prevalent structure of academia is far removed from this ideal. You have to be a part of the publication mafia (not my words) in order to get published in a prestigious journal. There is published evidence that in academia, most decisions are made without reading the contents of scientific papers/proposals. There is published evidence that peer reviews are inherently biased, flawed and favor the imbalance of power. This is taking the field of science rapidly away from diversity towards more of a stereotyped system and career path.
The document then tries to go to the behavioural roots of these. This is not a conspiracy. It is an effect of having a system in place that is easily drifted from the collective goal towards personal selfish goals. There is an underappreciated but clear and direct conflict between what is good for science and what is good for a successful career.
Having diagnosed the causes, the document then suggests an alternative system that is based on the principles of human behaviour. If a system is designed for some ideology and expects people to mold themselves with the ideology against their nature, the system is bound to fail. A system that eliminates or minimizes the difference between individual optimum and collective optimum is a robust system. A system that coerces individuals to accept ethical norms that conflict their personal gains is a badly designed system. A system that works smoothly towards the intended goal when every individual behaves selfishly is a well designed system. The system I suggest here would minimize, if not completely eliminate the biases, imbalances and defects and facilitate a good and equitable science culture globally.
Why did I write this, being in no delusion that it will bring about any change? To quote from the document itself, “But I cannot imagine myself not writing this when I can clearly see a flawed system, when I know I can diagnose what is wrong and can also see alternative design that is behaviourally sound and correctly incentivised. I have nothing to achieve by spending time and energy on something that will not even be noticed by the mainstream. But I made a statement earlier that there is a mindset that will study, investigate and innovate without any incentive, without any output, returns or rewards. This effort is a demonstration that yes, such a mindset exists and academia need to take efforts to select such minds rather than select “intelligence” and incentivise it with rewards for proxies of success which is bound to corrupt the entire system.” Read and debate on any platform that you like. Feel free to criticize, but only after reading it carefully.
My science, My way 