by Rajpal Abeynayake
Amid the clutter of activity concerning economic shocks due to a global oil crisis, and the response to these events, life goes on. There are issues of health, education and national R&D for instance, that refuse to go away. R&D stands for research and development, in case any reader isn’t familiar. It used to be a key term bandied about in economic forums, until words such as startup made their appearance.
But R&D is about innovation for the sake of the community. Academic research is often not about scientific research however. Higher educational institutions for that matter, are supposed to be about something more than personal achievements and the conferring of doctoral degrees, but often they end up being just that.
The problem is, academia has become hidebound. So called senior researchers in academic institutions are supposed to think out of the box, but they can’t, because often they are the ‘box’. Small wonder then that all the great business innovators of our time were College dropouts. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jack Ma; these were not folk who completed College degrees and took the conventional route towards R&D by joining a State or University sponsored research institution.
This pattern is being repeated everywhere on the planet. Japan’s big name car manufacturing giants that started the companies that eventually became household names in the automobile business, were all grease-monkeys being smart. Grease-monkey was a pejorative for a low level mechanic in an auto repair shop. But believe it or not, Mr. Toyoda and Mr. Honda who started the giants Toyota and Honda were both village lads who began life as mechanics in garages, and dreamt big.
Which points to the general failure of academia to produce truly innovative minds. For that matter, Orville and Wilbur Wright who had the at a certain point in time the crazy vision of inventing a flying machine, were not College products. They pottered around a garage in Pennsylvania until they figured out how to invent a flying machine — and the first prototype that flew from Kitty Hawk was a clattering wooden contraption that made much noise, and flew clumsily.
But academia is still thought to be the birthplace of truly innovative research, be it in the social sciences or the hard sciences. That this is a myth is seen from the above examples of how truly innovative steps were taken in industry and in the commercial world that eventually changed the world.
SURVIVE
But why does academia fail? It is because it is hidebound, and is often a killer of innovation. Young minds are often forced to be under the tutelage of mediocrities in universities. The system ensures that young talent has to carry water for older lecturers or professors that have agendas that are often more about their own personal glory, than coming up with innovative and enduring new ideas.
Academia is also hamstrung by the so called merit based system under which it functions. Under its edicts, young minds are encouraged to add letters behind their name. The more letters they have as a trail behind their family monikers, the more important they feel.
But often this type of degree collecting needs only a photographic memory and typewriting speed. It means that students have to memorize and then reprint facts as fast as possible, when they sit for exams, and sometimes when they are supposed to come up with so called research papers and the like on deadline.
Today, these systems have been entrenched in Colleges and Universities in all parts of the world, and no institution dares blaze a trail on their own. That’s because the system is self-perpetuating. All seats of higher learning are judged on a comparative scale, and they all want to attract students from every part of the world. That’s of course because these establishments depend on the money they make from paying students, to survive.
But the result of all this conformism is, well, conformism. In order to qualify to be rated as top-tier or second-tier or wherever in the scale that grades universities, these institutions of higher learning have to churn out graduates, spit out research papers and hand out certain amounts of degrees that make them seem eminently respectable.
But this factory production of ‘academic excellence’ inevitably results in most academic institutions being almost dysfunctionally hidebound. This means that most of the research that comes out of these establishments are modeled after the general preference for research at a given time in similar institutions. If a certain university is researching the subject of say industrial innovation among displaced communities, this subject quickly becomes a fad in the campus ecosystem, and so it goes.
ERUDITION
Then of course there are always the petty rivalries and fighting for placements that falls smack within the territory of so called pursuit of academic excellence in institutions of higher learning. Staff is essentially paid fixed salaries, and so the competition is not geared to come up with something innovative or new, but to outshine the fellow professor by fair means or foul.
This unhealthy aspect of competition within academia has made most individuals genuinely interested in coming up with something new or innovative, want to leave these institutions to seek better and less cut-throat prospects elsewhere.
Is there any way out of these unpleasant atmospherics that characterize university life? The only answer seems to be system-change, but to talk of system change in our campuses is something as futile as talking of changing the colour of the sky.
The system is what seats of higher learning are all about. Though that’s extremely unflattering to these alleged temples of erudition, it is correct to say that to a great extent academic institutions are glorified schools. They encourage book learning in the main, as opposed to practical experience, and are also unhealthily places that encourage rote learning and reproducing memorized stuff on demand.
The answer therefore seems to be to forget about truly transforming institutions of higher learning. In the general colloquial parlance, this task would be in the category of a non-starter, for some of the reasons pointed to above.
To seek truly innovative minds, we have to essentially look outside the rigid and regimented system of higher learning. Those who innovate in their backyards and garages, and potter around trying to develop impossible contraptions such as flying machines, as Orville and Wilbur Wright did, should be actively sought out and rewarded.
INNOVATORS
Their crazy schemes — or often outwardly crazy-looking schemes — should be funded, and if possible those regimented minds that pass out of the university system should be channeled to be their underlings, because every institution needs some regimented minds to do the accounts, for instance.
This is not to be facetious. This is literally what happened with say companies such as Toyota or Honda. These began as factories set up by visionary dreamers who had little or no education. But they benefitted from the zeal and dedication of the founders, who then employed hundreds and thousands of university graduates and others to ensure that the companies they formed seamlessly transitioned to powerhouses that manufactured dozens of popular products.
Regimented academia can never really produce innovative minds that excel. They may do so at a somewhat tepid pace, but the major innovations that truly transform a country or an era come from folk who are not hamstrung by the rigid atmospherics of the university system.
This is achingly obvious, and that’s so in any field, be it hi-tech, or for that matter, politics. It is therfore better to come to terms with this reality, and give priority to innovators who want to make transformative change, outside the ‘system’ as it were. Often, these people have to strive to emerge against the odds. But if the State and industry gave these people half a chance, it would be much easier to bring their productive ideas to fruition, empowering phenomenal growth and an abundance opportunities.