Scientific reform, post-academic research, and academic identity

A long-read guest essay by Tom Hostler on how the scientific reform movement aligns with John Ziman's concept of "post academic research".

An Intellectual Vocation 

In his book “The Soul of a University” (2018), Chris Brink describes the story of G.H. Hardy, a Cambridge Mathematician whose principled stance on his academic research was that it had no practical use whatsoever: “No discovery of mine” Hardy proudly wrote, “has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world” (Hardy, 1945/2005). Unfortunately, he was incorrect. In a rare and reluctant foray outside his own work, he wrote a short letter to Science (Hardy, 1908), explaining and correcting a mathematical mistake pointed out to him by a geneticist friend who he played cricket with. The proof he provided is now known as the Hardy-Weinberg Principle and is a foundational law of the study of population genetics. 

Hardy’s belief in the uselessness of research was rooted in the idea that non-instrumental research was the purest expression of intellectual curiosity. Although Hardy was an extreme example, the idea of producing knowledge for its own sake – rather than for an instrumental purpose - is closely wrapped up in the traditional stereotypes and ideals of “academia”. Universities from this view are seen as ‘protected’ spaces in society where intellectual work can be undertaken by those with the aptitude and ability to do so, as represented by the metaphor of the disconnected “ivory tower”, the residence of “intellectuals”, “eggheads”, and “boffins”¹. These individuals’ vocation is to focus on esoteric but often impracticable concerns, compared to the rest of society mired in problems of the real world. This stereotype is captured in the phrase “that’s academic”, often used to dismiss things as hypothetical concerns which are practically meaningless.  

Academia’s disconnect from practical reality and curiosity-driven mission help to provide a basis for its role in society. These stereotypes help to support the myth or ‘legend’ of academic research (especially scientific research) as a legitimate authority on defining the “truth” of an issue and resolving factual disputes. Academia is traditionally seen as a politically neutral institution of independent thinkers, who are trusted to provide disinterested ‘facts’ to inform moral or political decisions, even if these are unpalatable or relate to controversial topics.  

The academic institution that these stereotypes and myths are based on has changed significantly over the last few decades, and the changes look to be accelerating, with the increasingly influential scientific reform movement advocating for a ‘revolution’ in how research is conducted, published, consumed, and assessed (Spellman, 2015). This essay will focus on how these reforms are linked to existing changes in academia and what the effects might be on our culture and traditions. 

The Institution of Science 

The cornerstone of the current piece is the work of John Ziman, and his book “Real Science – What it is, and what it means” (Ziman, 2000), which covers his attempt to investigate the ‘legend’ of science, and the legitimacy of its authority. Ziman takes a refreshing perspective. Instead of looking for connections between the philosophies or methods of different academic disciplines to find a common definition of what research ‘is’, he adopts a naturalistic approach: he describes what he sees. The result is a fuzzy yet recognisable picture of ‘traditional’ academia, based not on shared methodologies or philosophies of science but of shared community practices and values. Ziman suggests that academic research is best described as an institution based around a culture of shared traditions and citizenship. Whilst there are significant differences between academic disciplines in the type and form of knowledge produced, there is a common principle of sharing, discussing, and collectively evaluating codified contributions to knowledge from the academic community.

“Real Science, What it is, and what it means” by John Ziman (2000). Image from: https://www.amazon.com/Real-Science-What-Means/dp/0521893100

Ziman describes traditional academia as a pre-modern institution without clear written rules, operating according to shared values and ethos of Communalism, Universalism, Disinterestedness, Originality, and Scepticism (CUDOS) that differentiate academic research from other kinds of knowledge generation in society. These values – linked to Merton’s norms - are closely tied to the non-instrumental nature of much traditional academic research: being driven by intellectual curiosity alone is what grants academics the autonomy and freedom to share knowledge freely, universally accept contributions of merit, remain disinterested to biasing incentives, pursue originality, and express scepticism. This autonomy applies to both individual academics (to pursue careers in their topics of interest), but also to the collective to exercise ‘academic freedom’ and critically evaluate society. Academics are traditionally seen not to follow any ideology other than the search for truth, and so can generally be trusted to advise society from a position as neutral experts, even if those truths may be uncomfortable (e.g., the need to divest from fossil fuels to prevent climate change or reduce interpersonal contact to control the spread of a pandemic).  

The autonomous nature of academic research is reflected in the way that research is typically organized and rewarded in a largely individualistic way. Careers are mainly built on the qualitative prestige of individual contributions to the scientific record, meaning that any individual could aspire to pursue their own research program and achieve tenure and field-wide recognition. Researchers have always been aware that academia is competitive but traditionally there was no upper cap on the number of ‘boffins’ allowed: If your contributions were valuable, there was a place for you. But Ziman argues that this model was never going to be sustainable: In 1961, Derek de la Solla Price published a graph showing that the number of publications (and therefore researchers) was growing exponentially, as new discoveries produced more new questions and professors developed more protégés to answer them. If this continued, we would eventually end up with more scientists than people on the planet! The limiting factor became money: eventually, academic research became too expensive to society to be allowed to keep growing. But in an age of perpetual ‘progress’, knowledge generation wasn’t allowed to slow down. The answer is that the funders of academic research (primarily governments) needed the process to become more efficient. 

Post-Academic Research 

As a consequence, Ziman’s naturalistic description observes a change in the institution of research. He argues that we have now entered a stage of “post-academic” research, in which the culture and structure are morphing to a new model designed to achieve more efficiency in the process of turning funding into knowledge that is useful to society. A key part of this change is the collectivisation of research. No longer do individual researchers primarily pursue their own creativity and curiosity-driven academic interests, but instead work together on an industrial scale to tackle ‘problems’ or ‘challenges’ commissioned by research funders relevant to society’s needs. Academics are strategically employed as a workforce of expert problem solvers, rather than appointed to a university as autonomous intellectuals driven by a thirst for knowledge.  

Researchers are required to hype up and justify the potential impact and applications of their work to these problems (Hyland & Jiang, 2021). Pursing a deliberately ‘useless’ line of research like G.H. Hardy seems unfathomable in the hypercompetitive world of grant applications and would be seen as antithetical to producing knowledge ‘efficiently’. The collectivisation of research also leads to specialisation and selects for different academic abilities. Researchers who have the organizational and social skills to act as effective managers of grant-winning and publication-generating teams of specialist post-docs are more likely to succeed than awkward ‘eggheads’ who don’t know how to ‘play the game’. Ziman summarises the post-academic ethos with the acronym ‘PLACE’: a research culture that increasingly produces Proprietary knowledge, is focused on Local problems rather than contributing to general understanding, is managed by a hierarchical Authority, works on Commissioned projects rather than long-term issues of curiosity, and is staffed with technical Experts rather than independent thinkers.    

From his naturalistic perspective, Ziman refrains from speculating on the causes of these changes. The application of neoliberal government policy to the funding and organization of research and universities is surely a large contributor and has been the subject of significant study in the theory of “academic capitalism” (Jessop, 2018). However, the development of technology, the internet, and the growth of neoliberalism, legislation, and quantification in society more generally (which research exists as a part of) are also important facets. Ultimately there is no one single cause, but the accumulated changes are undeniable. But how does the scientific reform movement relate to this? 

The Scientific Reform Movement 

The science reform movement will no doubt be familiar to readers of this essay, and here I use the term broadly to refer to advocates for the widespread promotion and adoption of open research practices. For many seasoned open research advocates, entry into the reform movement began with an interest in methodological innovations (such as preregistration, placing datasets online and so on) to discourage questionable research practices (QRPs), which had become common tricks employed to survive the cycle of publish or perish and competition in academia (Bakker et al., 2012). Explanation and promotion of open research practices subsequently became the topic of dozens of papers, workshops, conferences, and editorials across nearly all academic disciplines.  

But open research advocates realized that widespread adoption of these practices would require more than grassroots methods workshops: it would require changes to the structure and systems of academia itself (Nosek, 2019). There was increasing debate about the incentives of academia, and how they shaped researcher behaviour. If advocates really wanted researchers to conduct open research, then rewards would need to be introduced higher up the system to funders, journals, and institutions (Nosek, Spies, & Motyl, 2012). To integrate open research into the system, appropriate infrastructure would need to be built to accommodate data, materials, code, and preregistrations. Policies and procedures would need to be developed to record and codify the use of open practices to be able to reward them appropriately. Smashing the piñata of ‘closed’ research meant academia would have to catch all the valuable open research sweets that tumbled out and this meant developing the appropriate baskets and buckets to do so.  

These sweets have also turned out to be chewier than anticipated. Formatting data, writing analysis code, using version control, and writing detailed pre-registrations are often complex skills that require knowledge and training beyond the scope of many researchers, particularly those already stretched to breaking point with untenable workloads (Hostler, 2023). As the science reform movement germinates into new disciplines, standard practices developed in the context of combatting QRPs in quantitative experimental social psychology studies require reworking for new epistemologies and methodologies (E. A. Bennett, 2021; Leonelli, 2023). Sophisticated open research, such as making research materials interoperable across disciplines and questioning the theoretical basis of preregistration decisions are difficult challenges for many academics – especially those who during the decades of ‘replication crises’ have been advised or trained to generate ‘easy’ publications rather than be critically reflective methodologists.  

An increasingly common solution to this issue is to propose further specialization and collectivisation: if researchers cannot be expected to accommodate the significant demands of open research themselves, then they should be supported by colleagues who can help them with this. Accordingly, there is an increased focus on the ‘team infrastructure roles’ that support research (Carter et al., 2019) and increased prominence for the role of open research specialists such as data stewards, methodologists, and software developers (A. J. Stewart et al., 2021). Support for this shift comes from the very top: a recent high-level report by the UK Government science and technology committee on reproducible research recommended increased funding for these roles (UK Science, Innovation, and Technology Committee, 2023). Relatedly, many science reform commentators have argued that the way that research is assessed should also focus more on team contributions, and that funding should reward configured teams, rather than individuals, to reflect the added work that goes into conducting open research (A. Bennett et al., 2022; Tiokhin et al., 2021). Positions such as ‘open research officer’ are increasingly common in universities to assist academics with the demands of open research, and researchers are encouraged to build in support for open research from specialists into grant applications (e.g., University of Bristol, n.d.).

An example Open Research Officer position advertised at Newcastle University. From: https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DBO378/open-research-officer-research-data

Parallels Between Reform Discourse and Post-Academic Research 

There are clear parallels between the scientific reform movement’s discourse on policy and infrastructure, and the existing observable changes in the shift to post-academic research: Both advocate for a focus on teams and collectives rather than individuals; for specialization in methods, especially with technical skills; and for an increased role for ‘research professionals’ as team members to support the logistics of open practices for specific research projects. A quote from Stewart et al. (2021) clearly captures this sentiment: “The days of the ‘lone genius’ as the model of a researcher are fading fast, if not gone already. Therefore, there should be wider support, recognition and reward of team-based research” (p.3). Open research and team research are increasingly linked and promoted as complementary: open research facilitates team research and collaboration by enabling participation through transparency; team research facilitates open research by dividing the potentially significant extra workload and technical demands of openness between many individuals.   

Of course, there is not perfect overlap between the ideas of scientific reform and the post-academic research ethos. Open research ideals are antithetical to another aspect post-academic research identified by Ziman, which is the increased collaboration with industry and greater generation of proprietary knowledge. Ziman noted that increasing collaboration with industry led to greater control over knowledge generated through academic research and a rise in ‘spin off’ academic companies designed to monetize findings. This mindset is certainly incompatible with open research ideals of free and open access to research data and materials (which may lead to tension, e.g. Fernández Pinto, 2020). Ziman’s description of post-academic research as focussing on solving interdisciplinary ‘local’ problems is also tangential to advocating for greater collaboration and team-based research – logically, teams of specialists could be directed towards solving fundamental, curiosity driven questions rather than practical problems. The large particle accelerator research at CERN is an example of a team-based project that performs curiosity driven research, such as seeking to test theoretical predictions of the existence of subatomic particles².  

Team science in action: The CERN Control Centre. From: https://cerncourier.com/a/the-day-the-world-switched-on-to-particle-physics/

However, given a move away from autonomous individualized research is already a key element of post-academic research, then further collectivization and specialization (accelerated by science reformers) may contribute to a continued shift towards post-academic norms more broadly. Science reform advocates have called for adaptations to infrastructure and policy to accommodate open research practices and increased collectivization. But much of the groundwork for these changes has been laid already in the broader shift to post-academic research, with greater prominence for research professionals in the research process, as well as increases in research administration, and tracking and monitoring of research bids, outputs, and research data (Shepherd, 2008). Science reformers should be aware that utilizing these systems may lead to greater alignment with post-academic research norms in a broader sense, as well as facilitating open methodological practices. 

Team-based, method-focused research is fundamentally different in many ways to traditional academic work, particularly when it comes to autonomy. There is the basic matter of compromise when working in larger teams that means it is more difficult for an individual to pursue their own ideas, and there is a difficulty in finding collaborators for ideas that may be questionable or controversial. Collaborating with non-academics also changes the dynamic of research. Existing research professionals (such as grant application managers) often lack autonomy in their jobs (A. Bennett et al., 2022) as their role is often tied more closely to supporting universities’ ‘research strategy’, which typically supports specific types and topics of research and has a large focus on generating research income (Rees, 2015). As such, research professionals are often managed to prioritize supporting researchers whose work aligns with post-academic values, rather than quirky side projects. Expansion of these roles into open research may follow suit: employing core-funded technical research specialists to support academics to conduct research is a progressive move compared to the current precarious ‘gig economy’ of overworked temporary research positions (Nelson et al., 2020). However, such positions mean that universities may reserve greater control over how such specialists are deployed to support particular strategy-aligned projects, potentially limiting autonomy of researchers to pursue projects alone outside of this remit. 

More broadly, open research reforms foreground issues centred around the research process. Several scholars have warned that a focus on methodological problems may neglect deeper philosophical issues in disciplines such as psychology (e.g., Haeffel, 2022; Muthukrishna & Henrich, 2019). However, a focus on methodology and producing transferable, reproducible knowledge is more amenable to a post-academic ethos focused on providing specialist technical solutions to specific local ‘problems’: It is not surprising that governments and funders are supportive of openness reforms to help improve the ‘efficiency’ of research and maximise value for money from research funding via open materials and data. Funding lone academics to indulge the whims of their curiosity and pursue careers musing on abstruse theoretical issues with questionable practical significance is less desirable or defensible in a neoliberal political climate.  

Is Post-Academic Research Progressive? 

As a naturalistic descriptor, ‘post-academic research’ is a valueless term and does not prescribe negative connotations: many aspects of post-academic research may be considered progressive. For example, there are arguments that the ‘collectivisation’ of research does not constitute a rethinking of the research process, but rather acknowledges the roles and effort that have always existed: It just makes their contributions visible and rewarded. There is certainly a substantial amount of truth in this. To a certain extent the idea of the ‘lone genius’ was always a myth: behind every Nobel Prize winner was a team of researcher assistants, lab managers, technicians, as well as individuals providing the ‘soft’ skills which smooth the process and contribute to the success of any piece of research. Recognising these roles is a progressive move to a more equitable research culture (Brand et al., 2015). Yet there is evidence that research teams have for a long time been getting larger, and single-author publications are increasingly rare (Thelwall & Maflahi, 2022). There has also been an undeniable growth in “third space” professionals in universities who academics are required to engage with to conduct research (Whitchurch, 2008). These research professional roles largely exist to support academics to navigate and conform to existing policy, legislation, technology, and administration controlled by non-academic entities, rather than to challenge them.  

A second defence of post-academic and instrumental research is that it is problematic to use research funding (especially government funding indirectly paid for by tax-payers) to pay for research which does not have any clear benefit. Research is expected to have some articulable impact outside of academia to provide value for money and justify its cost (Doyle, 2018). Similar arguments have been used to justify open data, open materials, and open access (S. L. K. Stewart et al., 2022; UKRI, 2023): If tax-payers are funding our research, then we should aim to maximise the benefit from it and make the products of it available for re-use and scrutiny. Again, this argument has merit. Certainly, public funding should not be used to fund potentially fraudulent research, and open data and materials are often a necessary step for detecting this. However, the ‘value for money’ argument also relies on a utilitarian logic that prioritizes utility (or potential utility) above all else. The distinction between making data and publications open for scrutiny for bias and errors, and making them open on the basis of ‘potential benefit’ can become blurred in this discourse. The latter can subtly transform from an advantage of open research to a justifiable imperative, infused with the definitions of ‘benefit’ from non-academic sources such as funders and policymakers. In other words, it encourages and normalizes assessing research projects primarily on the benefit and impact generated from the researchers’ use of resources.   

A utilitarian discourse encourages applying neoliberal cost-benefit analysis to research which can lead to decisions to slash funding from non-instrumental research streams and disciplines, such as the Arts and Humanities, which in the UK has recently had its budget reduced by 50% (Weale, 2021). Conducting research for curiosity’s sake alone, with no clear practical benefit, cannot be justified in such terms. Alternative human values, such as creativity, enlightenment, heritage, and tradition need to be invoked. But in a dangerous feedback loop, the disciplines and projects most likely to research and advocate for these values are the ones that are finding it harder to justify and find funding. 

Changing Academic Identity 

Reforms to methodological practices have challenged the way that researchers design studies and collect and analyse data, and these challenges have sometimes resulted in pushback from researchers. However, reforms that support the collectivisation of research and greater alignment with post academic norms impact not only the technical skills that researchers employ on a specific project, but their broader way of working and professional practice. More fundamentally, changes in academics’ roles challenge academic identities.  

There is a significant amount of scholarship of academic identity, particularly within an educational context. The industrialization and collectivization of academic research mirrors the industrialization and collectivization of academic teaching: with the ‘massification’ of higher education in many countries, the identity of the academic and the relationship between academics and students has changed considerably (Macfarlane, 2011). Many of the tasks that academics used to be responsible for, such as supporting students’ career development and ‘study skills’, have been outsourced to professional services roles³. Macfarlane (2011) has argued that this “unbundling” of academic practice has led to a “hollowing out” of academic life and further propagates an instrumental and utilitarian mindset towards academic practice (e.g., students should be supported by professionals because the university needs to provide support as a contractual obligation, rather than as a humanistic value of academic citizenship). This hollowing out impacts the traditional identity of the academic as an ‘all-round’ intellectual and their role in a collegial culture. It raises questions about what it means to be an academic, the answers of which are strongly tied to academics’ values and beliefs about the role of a university education (and universities more generally) in society (Henkel, 2005). 

The impact of collectivization on research may be similar. In the shift to post-academic research, the definition of ‘research’ itself has changed (Macfarlane, 2021). Current discourse commonly describes “research” as a specific performative activity with a definable output. But traditionally, “research” referred to a culture of “broader intellectual engagement” (MacFarlane, 2021), encompassing everything from “scholarly investigation, appreciation, creative and textual criticism, re-interpretation and a critical treatment of contemporary thought” (Truscot, 1943). This broader definition supported the autonomy of researchers and an academic identity tied to the role of holding society account, birthed in the ‘de-Nazification’ of science after the second world war (Macfarlane, 2021). In a post-academic research culture, where teams of specialists compete for funding for research on specific pre-defined ‘strategic priorities’, academic identities are often in conflict. Researchers still espouse the importance of intellectual curiosity, collegiality, autonomy, and criticality, but often find these in conflict with a performative research practice centred around managing small contributions to multiple short-term entrepreneurial projects (Tülübaş & Göktürk, 2023).   

For Henkel (2005), autonomy and academic identity are “integrally related”, but the meaning of autonomy has changed in a post-academic environment. The autonomy derived from sitting in a protected ‘ivory tower’ is harder to sustain as the boundaries of academia with industry, society, and funders have dissolved. Instead, in an increasingly collectivist research culture, autonomy is generated by managing relationships with those outside of academia to maintain a collective reputation which grants academics the authority to be critical. This model is likely to become more relevant as post-academic research progresses further.     

The Future 

Ziman believed that the shift to post-academic research had significant implications for the legitimacy of academia’s authority on knowledge production and its critical role in society. He predicted certain aspects of the stereotypical ‘legend’ of science – that it somehow created knowledge that was more ‘factual’ than other means – would continue to come under increasing indefensible scrutiny – a prescient observation considering the growing “decolonization of knowledge” agenda, and criticisms of Western hegemony of knowledge production (Santos, 2008). Indeed, open research reforms are likely to accelerate this scrutiny further as the ‘black box’ of what researchers actually do to generate knowledge is revealed in preregistrations, open data, and open materials. High profile cases of errors and fraud are likely to become more common with increasing transparency. But Ziman discouraged promoting the idea that “science” had authority of knowledge on epistemic grounds. Rather, the culture and norms of academia supported an institution which generated knowledge in a way which was defensible on the grounds of being reasonable – researchers could articulate how their practice and culture reduced or acknowledged bias and errors, and therefore could argue that they produced a uniquely reliable kind of knowledge with value to society.  

This view is what made Ziman concerned about the impact of post-academic norms on the cultural fabric of science. He was worried that the transformation of curiosity-driven independent academics into teams of expert problem-solvers working on commissioned projects threatened their autonomy. It was autonomy and the freedom to express intellectual curiosity that was the true basis of academia’s authority on knowledge and for holding society to account. The autonomy was embedded into the culture and environment of academia that supported academics to uphold academic values. In post-academic research, the traditions and culture which support these values are continuing to change in numerous ways, accelerated by the science reform movement. It is clear that academic traditions of ‘peer review’, ‘authorship’, and the currency of research ‘papers’ are increasingly not fit for purpose in an open, digital, collectivist research culture. For example, open research reforms significantly increase the amount of ‘research material’ for scholars to consume - already so excessive that few can keep up – challenging traditional peer review mechanisms of scepticism and quality control (Hosseini et al., 2022). Larger ‘team science’ projects and CREDIT taxonomies (Holcombe, 2019) challenge traditional norms of who ‘deserves’ authorship and how credit is apportioned, disrupting old metrics and reward systems (Hosseini et al., 2022). A traditional focus on ‘outputs’ as indicators of prestige is increasingly replaced by a focus on the quality of the research process, reconfiguring how and when researchers should be assessed (Chambers & Tzavella, 2021). The values that these new traditions and cultures support – and whether they will enable the autonomy that is crucial to both academic success and identity – are yet to be established.  

Conclusion 

Ziman’s naturalistic description of ‘post-academic research’ is a useful perspective from which to consider the scientific reform movement. The concept transcends the traditional level of analysis of meta-science to describe the inevitable and irreversible changes of an entire culture, and the identity and values that accompany it. The structural changes advocated for by the scientific reform movement are but a small tide in a larger sea change. However, they nevertheless play an important role, especially in accelerating the collectivisation of research through the increase in workload for open research, and in directly advocating for team-based science. Practical changes to the traditions of academic work impact on the identity, culture, and values of the institution. This in turn impacts how the institution is perceived by the society it exists in, raising existential questions about the role and purpose of academia itself. Post-academic research, as the ‘post-‘ moniker implies, is a description of the present, irreversible reality. There is no ‘going back’ to the traditional model of academia. Ziman’s argument was that those of us who go further into the new reality would have to reckon with how to sustain the role of intellectual curiosity, to defend academia’s autonomy and role in society. “The maintenance of the non-instrumental roles of science should be a primary consideration in debating every aspect of its future.” (Ziman, 2003). In proposing changes to the structure of academia, this is something that science reformers should bear in mind.  

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Reference for this Post

Hostler, T. (2023, August 8). Scientific reform, post-academic research, and academic identity. Critical Metascience. https://markrubin.substack.com/p/scientific-reform-post-academic-research

About the Author

Tom Hostler is a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan Univeristy. For more information about his work, please visit: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZKMS8m0AAAAJ&hl=en To contact Tom, please email: t.hostler@mmu.ac.uk

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1. Not a universally admired term, as highlighted by the Institute of Physics recent “Bin the Boffin” campaign (Institute of Physics, 2023). 

2. Although it should be noted that project has a dedicated “knowledge transfer forum”, with the mandate to “[ensure] that new technology disclosures presented by CERN… are brought to the attention of potentially interested industrial and academic partners in their country”, showing that funding is partly based on potential applied utility. (CERN, n.d.) 

3. Yet paradoxically, this has not reduced workload: academics are still required to engage with these professionals, which takes significant time (Hogan, 2011).