IN MOST businesses, the boss does the hiring. He or she wants to get the best
person the company can afford. The boss knows that the best person will do the
high-quality work that brings in the most revenue and the most glory for the
enterprise. By contrast, an academic search committee hires a peer—someone
in direct competition with them, who might well steal their glory. How in the
world did this upside-down arrangement come about?

When a basketball team is given the chance to recruit a superstar, such as
Michael Jordan, the owner will weigh up the current team’s strengths and
weaknesses and consider how much the player is worth. If the current team were
responsible for evaluating a recruit, the situation would be charged with
conflict.

A superstar would, after all, steal the glory. Even though the team might win
more games with the star on board, none of the current team members would again
be named most valuable player or highest scorer. They would have an incentive to
find fault with a prospective player who is “too good”.

Exactly the same kind of conflict of interest between the individual’s value
and that of the organisation arises in an academic department. If hired, a
superstar is likely to get the lion’s share of not only salary rises but also of
limited funds and lab space—to the detriment of many. Faculty members will
thus tend to resist hiring prospective superstars, labelling them as “difficult”
or “judgmental”.

Another adverse consequence is that this search method enforces a rigid
separation of specialities. No faculty member will vote for a new colleague
whose academic interests overlap significantly with theirs. To do so invites
direct comparisons of performance. Consequently, faculty members will tend to
have such distinct specialities that they cannot even collaborate.

If the peer-governed selection method is neither optimal nor practised in
business or sports, we might wonder how it originated and whether it could be
improved upon. Prior to the 19th century, the early universities such as those
at Cambridge and Oxford were founded by the Church. Life in the all-male faculty
of those days was not merely spartan, but actually monastic. The college had
rooms for the faculty, who ate together in the dining hall. The only way to
escape this situation was if one had family money. Otherwise, even marriage was
unaffordable.

These were truly the days of the ivory tower, when the faculty, however
impoverished, were shielded from the cares of the world. In these monastic
conditions, hiring presented a unique situation. Because all faculty members
lived under virtually identical conditions, a newly hired colleague could not
cut into anyone’s future salary rises or promotions. Also, the state of
knowledge was such that each faculty member could evaluate the work of any
prospective recruit within broadly defined fields, such as natural philosophy or
medicine.

Under these conditions, peer evaluation of prospective colleagues was at once
feasible and necessary, and led to minimal conflict between the goals of the
individual and those of the institution. But why has this archaic system
persisted? It is because department heads, and those above them, are incapable
of evaluating the credentials of all the specialists they must hire, and have
delegated the job to the supposed faculty experts, despite their conflicting
goals. It must also be said that academic traditions die very hard.

Given this sorry state of affairs, it is perhaps useful to propose a
different system. We could separate the technical evaluation from the collegial
evaluation by appointing an external committee of, say, geneticists to evaluate
candidates for a genetics position. This has two benefits. A dispassionate
committee is qualified to identify the best candidate. And its members have no
personal conflict of interest because they have nothing to lose by hiring a
superior candidate. Thus they are free to hire what the department needs, rather
than what the least secure member of the department is willing to accept. This
process would help to reduce the mediocrity that grips many departments, reduce
overspecialisation and eliminate capricious and uninformed hiring.

It appears that scientists are being mistakenly compared here with judges,
who are not expected to preside over a case in which they have a financial
interest. What is forgotten is that individual scientists do not decide truths
in the same way as judges. They may put forward hypotheses, but it is for other
scientists to decide whether they agree, based on evidence and logic. Even
before publication, the requirements for peer review ensure that research meets
the highest standards of objectivity.

Of course, when a tobacco company funds research on the health effects of
smoking, it is justifiable to be concerned about bias. This is policy-related
research. But when researchers test a new drug they have to follow rules set out
by regulatory agencies. Although a pharmaceuticals company has a financial stake
in the outcome, its researchers must demonstrate conclusively not only the
efficacy of their new drug but also that it is not toxic.

The general expectation of basic research, though, is that it will be
conducted with the utmost objectivity and fairness. But by conducting research
that is both successful—that is to say published—and noticed, the
scientists involved stand a good chance of getting future grants and maybe
promotion. So self-interest is at play here, though the rewards are
indirect.

Researchers tend to lose their objectivity once they fall in love with their
own results. But once again, objectivity is assured by the requirements for peer
review and because other scientists can challenge the results.

When an individual scientist seeks to profit from his or her own work the
media go into self-righteous overdrive. Headlines decry secrecy, the withholding
of information and delays in publication as the adverse side-effects of
commercial self-interest. But the prospect of financial reward does not
necessarily lead to evil consequences, as the headlines imply. The opposite may
be true. If a discovery has commercial potential, then there is an incentive to
patent it as soon as possible and then bring it to market. Patenting requires
disclosure. In distinct contrast, ordinary research often lacks such pressures,
and the results may languish in drawers for years before they are finally
published.

The idea that commercial gain “taints” research is the product of a
misunderstanding. While bribes can distort the political process, a royalty from
a patented invention is no more a bribe than is, say, the sale of a painting by
an artist. Royalties for an invention can only be obtained if some company finds
it to be useful. Investors, bankers and regulators need to be convinced of the
validity of the discovery or utility of the invention irrespective of the
inventor’s biases or hopes. The prospect of commercialisation tends to steer
researchers away from trivial pursuits.

Perhaps the problem is that the public expects the laboratory to be a sort of
modern monastery. Certainly, it is a place of learning where people dressed in
long white coats (the equivalent of habits) labour, often under impecunious
conditions, searching for truth with a notable lack of physical passion, in the
service of a greater good. And these dedicatees have often turned their backs on
such vanities as matching socks and decent haircuts, and retreated to a quiet
place where they can contemplate the esoteric and ethereal. They have made
themselves into vessels of virtue, a treasure of our culture. How dare they
allow Mammon to invade their quiet halls? Is nothing sacred? The reaction to the
late Carl Sagan’s popular success as an author, for example, was disgust and
ostracism by many academics, and his nomination to the US National Academy of
Sciences was voted down.

The reality is that the inventions, drugs and writings of researchers will
largely remain obscure and unused unless there are incentives to develop them
into commercial products. Perhaps it is the academics who have not yet worked
out how to turn their own interests into cash—and resent being left
out—who complain loudest. Or are the people most disturbed by the thought
of others “cashing in” the ones who believe that their low salaries result from
a higher calling—the search for truth?

So why is the reward structure in the academic world so lacking in
incentives? The simple answer is that to the public university as an
institution, all professors in a given discipline are more or less equivalent in
value. Whereas a gifted engineer can make a discovery that nets his company
millions, a professor’s value lies mainly in filling a necessary speciality
slot.

For instance, in order for a biology department to fulfil its teaching
responsibilities, it needs one geneticist, one microbiologist, one ecologist and
so on. The professor’s value lies mostly in being a reasonably qualified expert
in the right field who can provide the proper credentials and teach the
necessary classes. So 70 per cent of the salary is paid just for the professor
holding the position. As long as he or she is not such a bad teacher that the
students run away screaming, the professor’s value as a teacher is equivalent
across all levels of teaching ability. Students do not pay more for an
exceptional teacher (except in so far as they choose between different
schools).

The benefit that the professor brings to the department through his or her
teaching quality is roughly equal across a broad range of teaching abilities,
and this justifies another 15 per cent of the salary. Another 10 per cent is
earned by fulfilling departmental duties, such as advising students, which can
be performed acceptably by almost any competent person. This means that 95 per
cent of the salary can be earmarked for holding the position and adequate
performance. Only 5 per cent of the salary is allocated to rewarding the quality
of research. Even at institutions where scholarship is critical to achieving
tenure, the reward is mainly that one gets to keep one’s job; there is little
financial payoff.

Scholarship contributes so little to the reward structure because the quality
of work of the individual professor does not earn the department or university
any money. In the US, public funds and tuition fees provide the bulk of the
budget, but they are fixed and are not influenced by the level of scholarly
output by the faculty, except indirectly and over the long term.

There are two situations where the quantity and quality of scholarly output
contribute directly to the financial health of the institution. In the first,
professors who bring in large grants can help to equip laboratories, support
students and provide overhead funds. However, grant money often cannot be used
to pay higher salaries since salaries are fixed by law or by a governing
body.

The second case concerns private universities. Here, students are willing to
pay higher tuition fees only if they believe that they will get a superior
education. High levels of scholarly output, books and prizes contribute to the
reputation of the institution, which leads directly to higher endowments and
higher tuition fees. A highly productive faculty also generates royalties from
its inventions, which again add to the institution’s perceived value.
Interestingly, at such prestigious institutions not only are salaries higher
overall, but “stars” are paid exceptionally well.

All this explains why universities consistently replace retired professors
(or those denied tenure) with junior-level staff. While a more experienced
scholar may be more knowledgeable, be a better teacher, have more contacts and a
superior reputation, these factors do not contribute much to the value of a
candidate applying for a professorship at a public university. The professor who
has enough expertise to be a credible specialist and who is an adequate teacher
is as good as a world authority who writes a book every year. Why employ a more
experienced person if he or she costs twice as much, or even more, and expects a
much bigger office?

The phenomenon of the slump in publication once an individual has gained
tenure also reflects hard economic realities. The marginal rate of return on
overtime is less than my kids make baby-sitting. Most newly tenured professors
soon figure this out and either slack off, or turn their attention to other
avenues that reward extra effort. Some switch to administration or industry,
which pay more. Others earn extra income from consulting, or maximise perks such
as foreign travel. If average effort is enough to get by, and exceptional effort
is rewarded at the rate of a dollar an hour, then exceptional effort and output
will be discouraged.