5 thoughts on “Perverse Incentives In Academia”

  1. It’s all true. But if you want keep the system sane and accountable how will you measure it then? Measuring number of publications is crap, its kinda like measuring LOC (Lines of Code) output from a programmer. There are attempts to counter this with metrics like the amount of citations you get, but this leads to people in positions of power like peer-review committees to ask for citations, it also means people in the field for a longer amount of time get more credit… Which is just an abuse of a position of power.

    I think it would be better if people were approved funding considering a project’s proposal and track record and for the papers the quality of the paper itself but it’s kinda subjective to evaluate things like that.

  2. Perverse incentives are a huge problem in general for management in all fields. You can’t always predict when something will go sideways but you can always look at outcomes to see if they match up with expectations and intentions.

    There are many different decision making cycles, they are largely the same, and they all include an analysis toward the end to measure outcomes. Except for government programs.

    Businesses have self interest in making sure outcomes are as intended and making changes if they aren’t. Government doesn’t have this interest, or maybe the stated desired outcomes are not really aligned with the true intentions. In which case, what people view as a perverse incentive is actually operating as hoped for.

  3. As a PhD in the physical sciences who left academia due to the appalling odds of finding a faculty job, this kind of thing makes blood squirt out of my eyes. Especially when I get a call to tutor a student who goes to a well-known university where the professor is such a poor teacher that the student needs to come to me to be able to learn the material. In addition to paying $35000+/yr to the university, they also have to pay $200/hr to the tutoring service. This is because universities don’t actually want teachers, at least in the sciences; they want researchers who bring in money the universities, vampire-like, can drain for overhead.

    Academia is broken.

  4. (Maybe double post, is there a problem with the site?)
    As a PhD in the physical sciences who left academia due to the appalling odds of finding a faculty job, this kind of thing makes blood squirt out of my eyes. Especially when I get a call to tutor a student who goes to a well-known university where the professor is such a poor teacher that the student needs to come to me to be able to learn the material. In addition to paying $35000+/yr to the university, they also have to pay $200/hr to the tutoring service. This is because universities don’t actually want teachers, at least in the sciences; they want researchers who bring in money the universities, vampire-like, can drain for overhead.

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