Still producing knowledge for your own Belly Button?

How relevant is scientific “fundamental” research in today’s world?

Let’s start with the following question: What is the usefulness of fundamentalscientific research if the only known goal is to share the results between academic peers in scientific conferences and to publish it in unreadable scientific journals and books full of philosophical frames and closed dogmas? What is their relevance if often the gathered and published data and results are based on samples or comparisons gathered by or through students within university contexts instead of real life data?

To have an academic career in today’s world where a lot of focus and importance is being placed on participating in top-ranked conferences and publishing in ditto journals, most of the time implies being obliged to enter and participate in the system, which is often the only way to achieve recognition and academic merit. This existing system, which has been developed many years ago, is basically based on the quantityand the excellence level of the publications, the latter being measured by a very narrow range of criteria:

the ranking of the journals which accepted your publication;
the impact index of the journal in the academic community;
the reputation of your publisher;
the possible academic "classics" you may get attention of and who may endorse you.

In this last century system, it doesn’t really matter how intelligent you are, what knowledge you possess, how you validate your life experience, how much expertise you have acquired or how innovative your ideas are for example.

The most important criterion is still whether or not you hold a PhD.

Without a PhD, you are considered to be a John Doe, it is as simple as that! It doesn’t matter how much work you have profoundly developed, implemented and validated on the basis of real life data and evidence.

Due to this closed, almost “secret society” system, which only attracts, selects and recognises the “Special”/happy few, we have (in our opinion) been witnessing the degradation and erosion of fundamental research, especially when we take a closer look at the societal relevance of these research results.

Often young academics, still lacking the real life context experience, put the acquisition of a PhD on top of their priority list. We can subsequently ask ourselves the question: “what relevance does this research have to organizations, workers and to market evolutions, when being developed by a young student, most of the times solely within the setting of a university and library, and without the relevant knowledge ofreal life professional experience?”

Following our intuition, we would say: “Low relevance and low impact.”

Back to the academic "classics"!

Our "classic" metaphor refers to an out-of-date mind-set, with a strong preference to cling to old customs, strongly defending existing systems, and very reluctant, even sometimes hostile towards any kind of change.

Why?

Because dealing with change is not easy and might even lead to questioning existing forms of relevance and recognition, especially when implementing new paradigms. These so-called academic INNOVATION BLOCKERS thus stand for traditions, hierarchies, individualism, formalism and rules.

When we look however at today’s challenges such as: hyper-competition, turbulence, speed of change, technological evolutions, disruption of channels, emergence of new citizenship and community values, industrial future scenarios, governance, for instance, our conclusion is very simple: there is a HUGE GAP between the classic´ vision and reality!

Our vision

We have a positive, constructive vision on why and how the academic world needs more innovativeness and change. In our view, the academic world should refocus on becoming increasingly more relevant to people, organizations and markets by 2050.Our vision is that by 2050 the academic world should be positioned in the centre of all living ecosystems, i.e. their development and governance. Of course this vision is based on our own academic and entrepreneurial experience. Being lecturers, researchers and entrepreneurs ourselves, we have already been witnessing and participating in some smaller and some more considerable changes in that direction, such as:

More informal research groups and units, basing their work on collaboration, co-creation and team dynamics;
New academic models, such as LAUREATE international Universities which are centred around the student and the informal deep relationship between the academic world and real life context organizations,
Universities where innovation became the heart and soul of their position and role in the local economy and markets, such as the AVANS Hogeschool in the Netherlands,
The natural creation of deep research “glocal” networks, sharing common problems, contexts and challenges. By recruiting and sharing the knowledge of international students and academics from all over the world and letting them work together, they are able to solve common problems, issues and challenges which can (in a next stage) also be transferred to their own local community context. One of the fine examples of this way of working together is Ezio Manzini’s social design research network - DESIS)
Students perform better in real life context environments and challenges. This method of teaching and researching - based on a real problem or project - not only teaches the students scientific methods, models, laws and rules, but also improves and strengthens their competences. Competences are equal or even more important to knowledge than skills,
Today, deep knowledge is just a mouse-click away and always available in real-time, e.g. Ted.com. As such, multidisciplinarity has become a natural resource for all researchers. We have observed some great examples of research groups successfully adapting the new media to their process.

We strongly believe in a genuine (R)evolution what the innovativeness of the academic research production and its dissemination systems are concerned.

This (R)evolution should foremost be based on the following five pillars:

Relevant content analysis as well as the production of relevant content-oriented knowledge;
A system that acknowledges and gives more credits to applied research and its results, sprouting from a real life context, instead of being predominantly focussed on the production of articles and publications;
The transformation and expansion of fundamental research from exclusively being executed and produced within research institutions to research also being developed within organizations, and based on and sprouting from the organisation´s research questions and hypotheses;
Empowering the role of the academic world within the core of the economic and political ecosystems;
Increasing the value-added awareness which is being perceived by society as regards research and academics – starting with a new form of communication and dialogue and by the creation of an in-depth relationship with all stakeholders in society.

How can we …?

Following our own credo, we obviously created a “how can we”-question and challenge: How can we create an academic research system which also guarantees the necessary knowledge transfer and relevance to a real life context? Some possible suggestions and solutions might be the following:

Put an increased focus on ´action research oriented methods´, be it or not in combination with an initial fundamental research approach. This implies that any valid research design should as of the initial start guarantee that the final stage is proving the data, the models, the tools, as well as all outcomes in an action research method,
Prioritizing the impact on and the meaningfulness for society in all academic evaluation systems,
Acting on the ´human resources´ side of the academic world:
- Shifting from pure academic researchers to academic intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs,
- Design the system to be flexible and centred round the existing talents of academic workers and researchers. This implies that, contrary to today’s approach where talented academics need to fit into the existing structures, structures need to adapt to talents and to the researchers,
- Academic institutions need to recruit disruptive and game-changing researchers, not with the intention to fit them into the system but to be relevant and continuously act as provocateurs to society,
- Compose well-balanced research teams, incorporating both young PHD-students as well as experienced entrepreneur-academics,
Changing the academic research mindset, evolving towards a more business-oriented one; not only as regards funding issues but also with respect to the value that is being provided and delivered to the market.

How can we set this movement in motion?

We believe that, as almost every revolutionary movement, it must start by changing the researchers’ mindset, attitude and belief’s system according to the following guidelines:

Researchers themselves should start producing more relevant content, i.e. focusing on specific existing organizations and businesses, thus not solely aiming for exposure during top rated conferences and in ditto publications, but having the application and transfer of that knowledge as their highest priority,
Researchers as well as academic research organizations should commence right now by restating their scientific goal, thus shifting their focus to the production of contents and research that has a genuine, considerable and measurable impact on changing and improving societal issues and problems,
Researchers themselves should also improve their entrepreneurial, economic and management skills and competences so they can genuinely act as an active partner in the fusion between the academic world and the market.

Also government institutions, following this research-shift, should re-define their funding and evaluation systems in order to make them more meritocratic. Finally, academia should develop strategic actions in order to engage all of the community stakeholders, to re-position education as a value perceived, respected and inclusive sector, in order to be regarded as a genuine engine for a valuable society of the future.

Connecting to Innokinetics

We, at INNOKINETICS, consider ourselves as trendsetters as regards the academic/entrepreneurial concept. We have a foot in both camps; as lecturers and researchers we are part of the academic world and as founders of amongst others INNOKINETICS we are entrepreneurs with ample of experience in the real life context business world.

In the last 10 years, we as researchers have been developing methodologies, models and tools within organizations i.e. from businesses over governmental organisations to schools. We act as we preach, we combine fundamental research with action researchmethods. Together, we have executed over 100 innovation projects in real life contexts within genuine organizations and YES we also contribute to conferences, and publish in journals but that certainly not our top priority!

Finally, we have learned a lot from our so-called “Classic Academics”, but a lot of meaningful and enlightening insights to our research are likewise gathered from real life actors, from CEOs and their daily battle and quest to follow their company’s dreams and aspirations, from citizens that crossed our research as stakeholders and who’s visions and lifestyles inspired us to go even further in our quest to serve society by always trying to create a positive impact on people’s lives with our ideas.

From a classic’s mind-set to an academic entrepreneur…

Academics aspiring to become academic entrepreneurs and looking for ‘startup’ or ‘management’ advice, don’t hesitate to contact us, we definitely can support you. Academic decision makers eager to transform their academic organisation into a genuine ‘academic entrepreneurial ecosystems’ - combining deep knowledge with the creating of solid and deep added value for societies – please contact us, because we developed specific methodologies and tools to assist you in this transformation.

Artist Credits: Matthew Spiegelman - Portal

Photo Credits: https://pt.pinterest.com/pin/485122191083247300/

This post was originally published on our company website under: http://innokinetics.com/still-producing-knowledge-for-your-own-belly-button/