Amanda Pearson’s Post

Interesting article

Working on PhD funding under Christopher Smith's leadership at Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), I read his recent speech/blog with great interest as it explores how a doctorate could be assessed and what is its core purpose. Quote: "This is one reason why we find it so hard actually to justify the PhD sometimes, because we define it by a product that is unusual and rather hermetically sealed: the thesis. But of course that’s not the product, as we discussed earlier. The product is a person who thinks and argues in ways that have benefited from a certain experience of time and support and access to intellectual resource. And that should be widely not narrowly, available. It shouldn’t just be PhDs who get that chance and it shouldn’t be a thesis that shows you have done so. We might be better if we first acknowledged that much more work should allow the space and time to ‘research’ or to be part of a curious, scientifically literate society, and that postgraduate research is just a form of thinking. And then be more open and celebratory of such work!". Full text here https://lnkd.in/eSAYDnaR

Researching as an undergraduate is SO rewarding, but getting materials and traveling to conferences can be costly! Luckily, the Arts and Sciences Dean’s Undergraduate Research and Travel Grants can support research AND conference travel. Learn more about how CCAS and UCC students can receive up to $500.00 to offset research costs and up to $500.00 to support travel to and attend academic conferences. https://lnkd.in/eqGwUYh8. #RutgersResearch

Together with Arielle Bennett-Lovell we'll be presenting on: Team Infrastructure Roles: Charting the Path for Future Leaders! Today we discussed with Aida Mehonic and Malvika Sharan how these two leaders navigate our very rigid academic research system. We need diversification in leadership to be able to tackle more complex challenges - and principal investigators should not be asked to excel at all of these aspects (community management, grant writing, product management and so much more!). A solution: making space for Team Infrastructure Roles so that they can lead the way with their specific skill sets! Looking forward to the conference! #TIR

Academic ranking criteria are the original sin for the publish or perish situation we have in academia, as I wrote in my earlier passages. It forces universities to push researchers to publish (through evaluation criteria for promotion), more than anything else, which forces researchers to prioritize publishing more than anything else, including educating students and the public, and bringing solutions to real-world problems. So, bravo for universities who dare to break away from the trap. 

The University of Zurich has announced a courageous decision: they are withdrawing from the league tables, pulling out of the competitive university rankings. These rankings are directly linked to the number of publications [in recognised journals] and the number of research grants obtained. The prestigious university was ranked number 80 among the world's best universities but will stop providing data to the Times Higher Education (THE), which produces such rankings. Like many others, the University of Zurich believes that rankings encourage lecturers and researchers to prioritize quantity over quality in their scientific work, which results in a a plethora of poorly researched, unnecessary publications. The University of Zurich believes that their withdrawal from the rankings will help their researchers focus on advancing science. https://ow.ly/t00h50Ro5hW https://ow.ly/I5Rp50Ro5hX

Refreshing to see some resistance against the meritocratization of Western Universities. In my recently published article "The Illusion of Meritocracy" (https://lnkd.in/g7atEf4W), I show that meritocratic ranking is a self-defeating illusion because it only rewards conspicuous and wasteful display of ‘merit’ rather than genuine contributions to society, which are unobservable and unmeasurable. In the context of academia, meritocratic ranking encourages scholars to engage in pedantic, overly specialized, and conformist conspicuous research rather than genuine quests for scientific knowledge. Unfortunately, this kind of sporadic revolt is futile because fundamentally, institutions are determined by worldviews. The rise of meritocracy in a society is the institutional consequence of adopting progressive humanism, an ideal-type worldview that advocates the harmonious co-realization of individual achievement and social contribution. Both Confucianism and neoliberalism, the dominant worldview in the contemporary West, belong to this ideal type. Similar to the promise of an afterlife to Catholicism, the illusion of meritocracy constitutes an indispensable theodicy to progressive humanism. Meritocracy is a necessary illusion for the contemporary West as it is for Confucian civilization: challenging the concept of meritocracy is as impossible as convincing Catholics to abandon the belief in an afterlife. Indeed, despite being accused of being more intellectually damaging than burning books and burying scholars alive (顾炎武, 1613-1682), the examination system remains the central mechanism of China's talent selection. In the contemporary West, the "Iron Cage" of meritocratic struggle will survive, in one form or another.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has topped the inaugural Interdisciplinary Science Rankings, a collaboration from Times Higher Education and Schmidt Science Fellows which spotlights the pioneering work of universities tackling global challenges. The US leads the way on cross-disciplinary scientific research, with seven institutions in the top 10 and 15 among the top 50. The top 20 features 12 universities from North America, four from Asia, three from Europe and one from the Middle East. The unique ranking uses 11 metrics to measure university performance in three areas: inputs (funding); process (measures of success, facilities, administrative support and promotion); and outputs (publications, research quality and reputation). It was created with the goal of improving scientific excellence and collaboration between universities, and aims to help institutions benchmark their interdisciplinary scientific work. Crossing traditionally narrow academic disciplines is widely seen as an important way to stimulate scientific breakthroughs and to help tackle some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Explore the new ranking in full, and read more about its findings, here: https://lnkd.in/eJWvXf8w

📢 We are excited to unveil the Annual Report 2023 in a new digital format! 📚 Dive into a comprehensive overview of our academic journey, highlighting research initiatives, societal services, PhD training programs, educational pursuits, and impactful collaborations with partners in the Global South. 🌍 👀Discover it here: https://lnkd.in/eZMEzXvF 👉 Let us know what you think! @UAntwerpen #DevelopmentPolicy #AnnualReport2023 #SustainableDevelopment

Here is the place to learn quantitative and qualitative methods. More info regarding specific courses to follow soon!