Academic research: a high-cost, low benefits business

Denis Besnard (1) , Lindsay Marshall (1)

1 School of Computing Science [Newcastle]

Less than two years after thousands of directors of French public research agencies were about to resign from their administrative duties as a protest against the reduction of research budgets (see for instance Nature, No 428, p 105), it may be timely to look at how well publicly-funded research is doing. Indeed, even in highly visible areas such as medical sciences, a number of drifts and malpractices are progressively turning public research into a costly and biased activity. One of the reasons lies in the pressure put on researchers to publish their work in scientific journals. This used to be an essential means of communication, but today publishing is much more a matter of career than one of disseminating scientific knowledge. Also, research in general tends to set its objectives independently from society's needs. This situation has given rise to a number of absurdities which undermine the usefulness of the scientific work itself. On the basis of simple facts and data, this study therefore attempts to demonstrate that modern science conducts research activities that exhibit flawed methods and poor deliverables. This paper is a critical insider's look at the world of academic research. It has been written by one researcher and one lecturer of the School of Computing Science at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is obviously difficult for us to speak with a total guarantee of accuracy about other disciplines. However, the various sources of information used in this study tend to demonstrate that drifts pervade many, if not all domains. The paper highlights a number of drifts within the world of research, the description of which will hopefully increase the awareness of the public and of the scientific community. In the end, the authors wish that the contents, however controversial, trigger a reflection on what science should and should not do, to the benefit of whom, and at what cost.

Domaines: Autre

Denis Besnard, Lindsay Marshall. Academic research: a high-cost, low benefits business. 2005. ⟨hal-00724102⟩