Corporate Academia: Navigating Waters Through Perks and Pitfalls

In the last two decades, researchers in academic positions around the world have found themselves subject to mounting pressure to stand out by publishing numerous papers in highly ranked journals or conferences at a rapid pace. The operations research and management science (OR/MS) community and many others are in the same boat. This has resulted in a turbulent ocean of scientific articles published each year [1], capable of sinking virtually any vessel attempting to navigate through it with the aim of searching for substantial relevant research outcomes. The pressure is real! Academic staff need to acquire funding sources to stay afloat in a very competitive landscape on “trendy topics,” whereas the younger sailors (including postdocs and early-career academic staff) need to follow the trend with fewer available resources. Academics, however, have not been prepared to deal with the aftermath of this paradigm shift. To navigate these waters, some academic institutions have turned into corporate settings, in which the responsibilities of academic staff as managers at different levels dominates their role as educators and mentors.

Increasing competition for funding acquisition, the highly competitive job market for young scholars judged by quantity and quality of their publications, excessive reliance on all sorts of metrics to evaluate scientific outcomes for promotions, and universities’ efforts to reach the top of global rankings charts, among other factors, have shifted the academic environment away from its traditional setting toward a more corporate-oriented model. According to Jakub Železný [2], “competition can serve as powerful motivation, but also breeds major problems, exacerbated by an imperfect system of assessing research, open to abuse.” He also argues that bibliometric evaluation, a typical measure of success, causes competition and stalls scientific progress, so we might consider abandoning it and encouraging collaboration. Furthermore, as stated by José Mario Martínez, “The world has very, very, very big problems, and we need talented people taking account of them. These people should cooperate. To be concentrated only on our individual careers can be good, but it is not enough!” [3].

During our conversation in an episode of the “Subject to” (s.t.) podcast [4], we discuss some of the implications of academic institutions embracing a corporate mindset. Although we acknowledge the perks of the current academic climate, we would like to shed light on some of the aspects that require special attention. 

Societal Impact: Narrowing the Gap Between Industry and Academia

The academic landscape of today, to a great extent, paves the path toward sponsored collaborations between different stakeholders (public and private) and universities to tackle not only industrial problems but also social and societal issues. In the process of making this collective effort to address global challenges, academic freedom and open science need special attention and protection. Ph.D. students and academic staff should not be mistaken for consultants with lower wages compared with their actual consulting corporation counterparts. Students need to be protected by their supervisors against the pitfalls of such collaborations. Otherwise, the highly demanding requirements to finish their Ph.D. and the pressure from nonacademic partners to find fast solutions for their businesses can take a severe toll on students’ mental and physical health. In addition, there is an inherent conflict of interest between protecting industrial intellectual properties and promoting open science, which is at the core of universities’ missions. As a solution, we should make more efforts in making anonymized data and research findings openly available and accessible to all scholars without jeopardizing the confidentiality of private information of stakeholders.

Publishing Habits

Developing high-quality research takes time. Although there are more relevant and vital topics that can be investigated thanks to the industrial collaboration opportunities, there is simply limited time to produce proper and reliable research outcomes. Limited open-access data, high pressure for publishing in a short period of time and toggling roles between manager, supervisor, educator and researcher leave scientists at the crossroads of whether they should skirt the rules of the game or decide to stay true to the fundamentals of doing worthy, impactful and reliable research. As a result, the corporate academic setting has caused drastic changes in the publishing habits that further enable the monopoly of publishers that charge astronomical amounts to make publications open access. In this regard, efforts have been made to limit the impact of citations and impact factors on academic advancements. For example, several funding agencies have adapted alternative ways of recognizing and rewarding academics, such as the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) implementing its principles in the assessment procedures [5]. However, there is still a long way to go.

Cultivating the Talent or Killing It?

Many of us gravitated toward academic careers because of our shared passion and drive for excellence in science, and consequently for creating a living lab atmosphere at universities for young students (future leaders of our global societies), in which they are allowed to make mistakes, learn from them, improve and try to internalize all values that our global community holds dear. Is our current rhetoric inspiring new generations to play a part in solving global issues, or is it driving them away? We need to prepare our students across all disciplines to face real-life, significant global challenges. If we are consumed by the pitfalls of corporate academia, younger generations may become increasingly uninterested in pursuing academic careers at universities, as seen recently in Brazil [6]. A newly published study involving 400,000 scientists from 38 countries even found that nearly 50% of researchers leave science within a decade [7].

In addition, we have been witnessing many scientific staff at top universities moving toward industry at all stages of their careers. For example, Rubén Ruiz, editor-in-chief of the journal Operations Research Perspectives and one of the leading O.R. figures in Spain, put his very successful career at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia on hold to join Amazon Web Services. “I was doing research on things that were unrelated to what I was doing at companies, and the research was no longer interesting. Amazon called me, they explained to me what they were doing, and I was thrilled,” he shared [8]. Other successful researchers, such as s.t. guests Luciana Buriol, former president of the Latin-Ibero-American Association of O.R. Societies (ALIO) and past vice president of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS) [9], as well as Haroldo G. Santos [10], co-creator of Python-MIP [11] and a key contributor to the CBC (COIN-OR branch and cut) [12]. , also made similar moves by leaving their academic positions at Brazilian universities to become scientists at Amazon.

We see the same situation for new graduates who prefer working for a corporation with higher salaries. Especially for our OR/MS community, there is a significant tendency toward working for consultancies and tech companies. The question that needs to be asked: If we do not safeguard the freedom of minds to do impactful research to solve significant problems faced by our global community, how can we assure that we have healthy, democratic and sustainable societies? The answer is definitely not to be drowned in this swirling water but try to navigate our way out of it for safer and more promising grounds. We believe that as educators, we have the chance to teach the next generation of academics that it is possible to do impactful research without becoming conditioned to the current academic culture. 

Our Academic Culture Is Obsessed with Success, but What If There Is a More Fulfilling Path?

In these turbulent waters, there is indeed hope for a brighter future. Adapting to fundamental changes in any ecosystem requires cultural shifts, and the first step toward adaptation is education. Instilling in our students the culture of collaboration instead of harmful competition is our vessel to achieve this goal; and universities are the place to do so. Informing the younger scholars to adjust their expectations and setting priorities will help reduce the pressure. Placing value on impactful collaborative research that addresses major global problems creates a purpose for our daily hustle. Universities should be the safest place to learn how to deal with success and failure and to practice how we can be a more accepting and tolerant global society that strives for a better future for all.

References

1. Hanson, M.A., Barreiro, P.G., Crosetto, P. and Brockington, D., 2024, “The strain on scientific publishing,” Quantitative Science Studies, pp. 1-29.
2. Železný, J., 2023, “Why competition is bad for science,” Nature Physics, Vol. 19, No. 3, p. 300.
3. José Mario Martínez, s.t. episode, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe4c8AIZULw&t=6477s.
4. Shadi Sharif Azadeh, s.t. episode, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHQx3Y1wuPk&t=4723s.
5. San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), https://sfdora.org.
6. de Oliveira Andrade, R., 2024, “Brazil’s plummeting graduate enrolments hint at declining interest in academic science careers,” Nature, Vol. 630, No. 8016, pp. 518-519.
7. Kwiek, M. and Szymula, L., 2024, “Quantifying attrition in science: A cohort-based, longitudinal study of scientists in 38 OECD countries,” Higher Education, pp. 1-29.
8. Rubén Ruiz, s.t. episode, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4zhuVnQ5Jo&t=4342s.
9. Amazon Science, 2022, “Luciana Buriol’s quest for scientific joy,” Amazon Science, April 13, https://www.amazon.science/working-at-amazon/luciana-buriols-quest-for-scientific-joy.
10. Haroldo G. Santos, s.t., episode, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngsP_XPSS4o&t=3607s.
11. Python-MIP, https://www.python-mip.com/.
12. CBC, https://github.com/coin-or/Cbc.