A new paradigm for the scientific enterprise: nurturing the ecosystem

Abstract

The institutions of science are in a state of flux. Declining public funding for basic science, the increasingly corporatized administration of universities, increasing "adjunctification" of the professoriate and poor academic career prospects for postdoctoral scientists indicate a significant mismatch between the reality of the market economy and expectations in higher education for science. Solutions to these issues typically revolve around the idea of fixing the career "pipeline", which is envisioned as being a pathway from higher-education training to a coveted permanent position, and then up a career ladder until retirement. In this paper, we propose and describe the term "ecosystem" as a more appropriate way to conceptualize today's scientific training and the professional landscape of the scientific enterprise. First, we highlight the issues around the concept of "fixing the pipeline". Then, we articulate our ecosystem metaphor by describing a series of concrete design patterns that draw on peer-to-peer, decentralized, cooperative, and commons-based approaches for creating a new dynamic scientific enterprise.

Keywords: academia; careers; collaboration; higher education; independent scholarship; peer-to-peer science; politics of science; science studies; systems-thinking.

Figure 1.. The standard scientific career “pipeline”.

The pipeline includes formal scientific training and different scientific career paths. The pipeline is characterized as a set of distinct streams with little flow between each stream, and a career ladder within each sector.

Figure 2.. The scientific ecosystem.

The inner circle (beige) represents the basic necessities needed to be a functioning member of society, as well as a scientist. The next circle (purple) shows the different groups that are often involved in the pursuit of knowledge and scientific progress. Because the circle can be rotated there is no ‘up’ in this representation; no one type of institution is privileged in this representation and there is exchange in all directions. In addition, the borders between the different institutes are highly porous—there is collaboration, reflection, and sharing of resources between them. The next circle (orange) represents different kinds of resources and infrastructure needed to support science. The outermost circle (light blue) represents the environmental context, including biophysical limitations, and the socio-political and economic landscape, that science and scientists must function within, adapt to, and seek to understand and affect.