Perverse Incentives? How Economics (Mis-)shaped Academic Science

"The unintended consequences of how we fund academic research—in the U.S. and elsewhere—are strangling innovation, putting universities into debt and creating numerous PhD graduates and postdoctoral fellows who will not be able to get jobs in their chosen fields, according to economist Paula Stephan of Georgia State University.

The good news, Stephan said at the opening plenary session of the PEARC17 conference in New Orleans on July 11, is that researchers probably needn’t go back to the politicians to ask for more money. The bad news: the current system is so ingrained it’s hard to be optimistic."