The Para-Academic Industry and the Mayhem of Metrics

According to Peter Senge and his 11 laws of Systems thinking “Today’s problems come from yesterday’s solutions”.  We argue that the current academic management paradigm NPM has created a twin monster: A Para-Academic Industry and a Mayhem of Metrics.

The hypothesis behind New Public Management is, that the public sector institutions can become effective if run like a private sector company. Efficiency must be measured which is why performance indicators must be established. For this reason, a new industry has emerged. Its commodity is different types of services to academia including data for various researcher performance metrics.  This industry has struck gold: Modest costs of production and distribution combined with a loyal and tax-payer funded clientele, who is highly dependent on their commodity: Access to publications and data on publication activities.

The data provided by the Para-Academic Industry has on the surface solved one problem since it has enabled university management to measure productivity, but at the same time it threatens to undermine researcher integrity since researchers increasingly are being forced to optimize against simplistic and unfair measures and since optimizing research performance often is alarmingly close to questionably research practices. The current Mayhem of Metrics we argue has a potential of creating a downwards spiral of moral decay among the researchers.