This
is a cause for concern. In our increasingly technological world,
issues like nanotechnology, stem cell research, nuclear power,
climate change, vaccines and autism, genetically modified organisms,
gun control, health care and endocrine disruption require thoughtful
and informed debate. But instead, these and other issues have
often been caught up in the so-called culture wars.
There
are numerous factors that explain this current state of affairs,
but one is the extent to which the scientific community has
been unable or unwilling to explain the state and gravity of
scientific findings.
We
academics will need to evolve to keep up with the major changes
going on around us. At stake is how we will maintain our relevance
in society.
SORRY
STATE OF PUBLIC DISCOURSE ON SCIENCE
Unfortunately,
many excellent scientists are poor communicators who lack the
skills or inclination to play the role of educator to the public.
Further, we are not trained nor are we given proper incentives
to do it. And for that reason, surveys find that many academics
do not see it as their role to be “an enabler of direct
public participation in decision-making through formats such
as deliberative meetings, and do not believe there are personal
benefits for investing in these activities.” As a result,
we focus inward to our own research communities and remain disconnected
from important public and political debate going on around us.
Adding
to this growing threat of irrelevance is an alarming antagonism
towards science, leading National Geographic to devote
its March 2015 cover to “The War on Science.” This
manifests itself in a professed lack of appreciation of the
academy, particularly within state legislatures that have begun
to cut funding to higher education (witness activities in Wisconsin
and North Carolina). The problem is not made any easier by the
reality that the public, according to surveys by the California
Academy of Sciences, the National Science Foundation and others,
is not well versed in science and appears unreceptive to attempts
by scientists to correct it.
But
correct it we must. And, correct it we will, whether we choose
to or not. Two forces among many will compel us to change.
SOCIAL
MEDIA WASHES OVER ACADEMIA
Social
media is perhaps one of the most disruptive forces in society
today, and academia is not immune to its impact. Society now
has instant access to more news, stories and information, including
scientific information, from more sources and in more varied
formats than ever before. For universities to remain relevant,
we must learn to engage in the new realities of the information
age.
However,
the academy is not keeping up. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs),
open access journals, online news, blogs and emerging forms
of educational technology are altering what it means to be a
teacher and a scholar. While we write our articles in academic
journals and think we have contributed to public discourse,
neither the general public nor politicians read them.
Instead
of expecting people outside the academy to come to us, we have
to go to them. But other interests are beating us to the punch,
publishing their own reports, often with a political agenda,
and using social media to have far more impact on public opinion.
Add to this changing landscape a rise in pseudo-scientific journals
and we must face the reality that if we can continue to write
only for specialized scholarly journals, we become relegated
further to the sidelines.
A GENERATIONAL
SHIFT UNDER WAY
Today,
however, many young people are coming to the academy with a
different set of aspirations and goals than their senior advisors.
Many
graduate students report that they have chosen a research career
precisely because they want to contribute to the real world:
to offer their knowledge and expertise in order to make a difference.
And many report that if academia doesn’t value engagement
or worse discourages it, they will follow a different route,
either toward schools that reward such behaviour or leave academia
for think tanks, NGOs, the government or other organizations
that value practical relevance and impact.
The
frustration is such that some no longer tell their advisors
that they are involved in any form of public engagement, whether
it be writing blogs or editorials, working with local communities
or organizing training for their peers on public engagement.
Will academia eventually spit these emergent scholars out, or
will they remain and change academia? Many senior academics
hope for the latter, fearing a worrying trend toward a reduction
in the level of diversity and quality in the next generation
of faculty.
How
serious is this threat of irrelevance? In 2010, The Economist
wondered if America’s universities could go the way
of the Big Three American car companies, unable to see the cataclysmic
changes around them and failing to react. Put in less inflammatory,
but no less urgent form, University of Michigan President Mark
Schlissel offers these thoughts:
We
forget the privilege it is to have lifelong security of employment
at a spectacular university. And I don’t think we use
it for its intended purpose. I think that faculty on average
through the generations are becoming a bit careerist and staying
inside our comfort zones. [But] If we’re perceived as
being an ivory tower and talking to one another and being proud
of our discoveries and our awards and our accomplishments and
the letters after our name, I think in the long run the enterprise
is going to suffer in society’s eyes, and our potential
for impact will diminish. The willingness of society to support
us will decrease.
SIGNS
OF HOPE
Against
this gloomy backdrop, there are glimmers of hope as more people
rethink the audience for our academic research.
To
begin, many faculty are engaging with the public regardless
of the lack of formal rewards or training. A 2015 Pew Research
Center/AAAS survey found that 43 percent of 3,748 scientists
surveyed believe it is important for scientists to get coverage
for their work in the news media, 51 percent talk with reporters
about research findings, 47 percent use social media to talk
about science and 24 percent write blogs. However, another survey
at the University of Michigan found that 56 percent of faculty
feel that this activity is not valued by tenure committees.
Even
on that front, we see changes as promotion and tenure criteria
are undergoing experimental changes. For example, the Mayo Clinic’s
Academic Appointments and Promotions Committee announced it
will include social media and digital activities in its criteria
for academic advancement; the American Sociological Association
published a white paper on how to evaluate public communication
in tenure and promotion; and some schools, like the Ross School
of Business at the University of Michigan, have added a fourth
category to the standard three – research, teaching and
service – in its annual review process that captures impact
on the world of practice.
Beyond
training, scientific institutions are beginning to study the
“rules of engagement” more deeply: The AAAS Leshner
Center for Public Engagement with Science & Technology,
the National Academies of Sciences’ “The Science
of Science Communication” Colloquia and the University
of Michigan’s “Academic Engagement in Public and
Political Discourse” conference. Similarly, donors are
stepping forward with funding: such as the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s
“Public Understanding of Science, Technology & Economics”
or Alan Alda’s support of the Center for Communicating
Science at Stonybrook University that bears his name. There
are also new academically based training programs that are designed
to help faculty navigate this new terrain.
Not
to be left out, many students are taking charge of their own
training in this area. For example, the Researchers Expanding
Lay-Audience Teaching and Engagement Program (RELATE) was started
at the University of Michigan in 2013 by a group of graduate
students to help “early career researchers develop stronger
communication skills and actively facilitating a dialogue between
researchers and different public communities.”
To
help this process move even faster, new kinds of outlets are
making it easier for academics to bring their voice directly
to the public, such as The Conversation, the Monkey
Cage and hundreds more in journals, trade associations
and professional societies.
Indeed,
it would seem that academia is changing, albeit slowly. The
conversation is being engaged by faculty, deans, presidents,
journal editors, journal reviewers, donors and students. But
in the end, the question is whether the aggregation of these
many conversations will reach the critical mass necessary to
shift the entire institution of the academy.
WHERE
ARE WE GOING?
To
many, the call for public engagement is an urgent return to
our roots and a reengagement of the core purpose of higher education.
It is about re-examining what we do, how we do it, and for what
audiences. It is part of what Jane Lubchenco called in 1998,
“scientists’ social contract,” in which we
have an obligation to provide a service to society, to give
value for the public funding, government grants or general tuition
that we receive and an account of what that money is being used
for. The Mayo Clinic nicely outlined the ultimate goal:
The
moral and societal duty of an academic healthcare provider is
to advance science, improve the care of his/her patients and
share knowledge. A very important part of this role requires
physicians to participate in public debate, responsibly influence
opinion and help our patients navigate the complexities of healthcare.
As Clinician Educators our job is not to create knowledge obscura,
trapped in ivory towers and only accessible to the enlightened;
the knowledge we create and manage needs to impact our communities.
While
this statement is aimed at health care providers, it applies
to all in the scientific endeavour and reminds us that the ultimate
value of our work is its service to society.
Andrew
J. Hoffman,
Holcim (US) Professor at the Ross School of Business and Education
Director at the Graham Sustainability Institute, University
of Michigan.
This
article was originally published on The
Conversation.
