Measuring science's other bottom lines

By Amy Lemay

In 1928, Abraham Flexner gave a series of lectures at Oxford on the aims of the modern university and the great challenges threatening society. His insights are eerily similar to those we hear today regarding "the accelerated rate of social change and the relatively more rapid progress in the physical and biological sciences".

Little has changed in the century since on the role of academic research in serving the needs of society. As Flexner stated: "...in this world rocking beneath and around us, where is theory to be worked out, where are social and economic problems to be analysed, where is theory and facts to be brought face to face, where is the truth, welcome or unwelcome, to be told, where are men to be trained to ascertain and to tell it, where, in whatever measure it is possible, is conscious, deliberate and irresponsible thought to be given to our own liking, unless, first and foremost, in the university?" His vision for academic research was based on public values.

While Flexner saw great promise in natural and physical sciences research, he was concerned about the consequences of rapid progress in science, which he cautioned "creates more problems than it solves". He also realized it was impossible to predict the challenges that would emerge as society progressed.

As such, he had extraordinary insights on the need and importance of social science and humanities research, not just to respond to the challenges of an increasingly complex world brought on by scientific progress, but to maintain "some sort of cultural equilibrium" and ensure that we do not "lose our perspective, lose our historic sense, lose a philosophic outlook, and lose sight of relative cultural values".

valuing social sciences and humanities

Flexner believed that universities were best suited for this task: "the ‘great society' must and wants to understand itself — partly as a matter of sheer curiosity, partly because human beings are in muddle and cannot get out unless they know more than they now know". Flexner's vision for academic research was insightfully holistic: "Intensive study of phenomena under the most favourable possible conditions — the phenomena of the physical world, of the social world, of the aesthetic world, and the ceaseless struggle to see things in relation — these I conceive to be the most important functions of the modern university".

Flexner's public value vision for academic research continues to have merit today. Yet, despite substantial public investments in academic research, it is almost exclusively evaluated against economic values that largely fail to reflect the social imperative that Flexner envisaged. Flexner was not opposed to an economic utility of academic research, but he imagined it having a more diverse social contribution.

Academic research has shaped society, culture and the economy. It is responsible for scientific discoveries and technological advancements that have saved lives and improved the standard of living. Academic research provides objective evidence upon which to base policy decisions and improve the practice of socially valued endeavours (e.g. agriculture, engineering, social work, healthcare, education, environmental management).

Over the past 30 years, the vision for academic research has shifted from that of broadly serving the needs of society to serving narrow economic objectives. Governments, business leaders, economic experts and even researchers have embraced the economic imperative for academic research by privileging academic research for its economic value over its public value.

Economic benefits don't tell whole story

Economic values have become widely accepted as the dominant proxies for all other benefits of research. Research outcomes that can be measured objectively and quantitatively are privileged over other benefits less suited to direct, quantitative assessment. Economic indicators have gained prominence because they are founded on simple, quantitative productivity metrics that privilege instrumental uses of research. They do not actually provide an indication of or explain the changes that have occurred in health, quality of life, equity, justice, or environmental conditions as a result of research, all of which are public values.

Current research policy fails to acknowledge the possibility that economic outcomes may not be desirable or even appropriate and/or an indicator of successful use of research. Policy further fails to acknowledge that public good outcomes cannot be reduced to simple, determinate economic metrics. There are no generally accepted theories or models that provide a rationale for research based on public values, nor are there tools for defining the social impacts and understanding the causal links between research and social change.

public values vision

Emphasizing the economic value of academic research favours research with inherent market opportunities, namely the natural sciences, over research that does not have commercialization potential. Despite remarkable advances in S&T we continue to struggle with social crises that have plagued humanity for centuries (poverty, injustice, inequity, conflict), because the research necessary to find the solutions cannot demonstrate a quantifiable market opportunity and therefore is significantly underfunded.

What would it be worth to humanity to find answers to ancient mysteries that would help us understand our co-evolving existence in an interdependent universe? With only quantifiable economic indicators to measure value, the true value of academic research is significantly underestimated, even in those fields of research that have achieved market success. What is needed is a balanced approach that acknowledges both the public value of academic research and the economic value.

Without a public values vision for academic research, it is unlikely that the true contribution of academic research to society can be effectively realized, fundamentally understood and fully appreciated.

Amy Lemay is the president of VISTA Science & Technology Inc, a private practice that assists research intensive organizations to position their research in ways that optimize both public and economic value. She is also a PhD student in the Department of Theory and Policy Studies, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.