
Publish and Perish at Imperial College London: The Death of Stefan Grimm - pms
http://www.dcscience.net/2014/12/01/publish-and-perish-at-imperial-college-london-the-death-of-stefan-grimm/
======
anigbrowl
_This is not a university anymore but a business with very few up in the
hierarchy [..] profiteering and the rest of us are milked for money_

This is exactly the impression I have of many American universities, which
seem to have collectively fallen victim to a sort of 'administrative capture'.
A typical example is the recent pay increases of 20% for the University of
California chancellors - on salaries in the mid-$300,000s. The regents who
voted for this said they intend to boost the pay of faculty and other staff
too (who have also been subject to years-long pay freezes), but to me there's
something fundamentally wrong with the idea of starting with the people who
have the least economic need and are already handsomely compensated.

[http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/UC-regents-
award-20-...](http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/UC-regents-
award-20-percent-pay-raises-to-fix-5765312.php)

~~~
gnarbarian
Nobody gets what they deserve. You only get what you negotiate.

(from my dad who is a former engineering professor and now a university
administrator).

~~~
anigbrowl
Don't take it as a dig at your dad, but shouldn't it be part of an
administrator's fiduciary duty (at least at the top level) to ensure that
people _do_ get what they deserve? The longterm health of the institution
surely depends on the quality and availability of the intellectual output as
well as the balance sheet.

~~~
HarryHirsch
Precisely this. The loss of productivity from disaffected employees is
difficult to quantify, but at times substantial. And once a culture of
disaffectation takes hold it's near impossible to get rid of it.
Administration is well advised to be careful in this matter.

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dredmorbius
Interesting to note that Imperial College appear to have wiped all record of
Dr. Grimm from their website.

[http://www.imperial.ac.uk/collegedirectory/](http://www.imperial.ac.uk/collegedirectory/)

[http://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/s.grimm](http://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/s.grimm)

It's heartening to see that some aspects of this institution's operations are
apparently well-funded and efficient.

(Sarcasm, for the impaired.)

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jboggan
The flip side of this (at least at an American research university that I have
witnessed first hand) is that professors bringing in large amounts of money
with R01 grants can get away with nearly anything they want. This intersects
with the other front page discussions about H1B visas and the system of
exploitation I've seen with foreign post-docs and grad students. I've seen a
foreign research scientist (and dear friend) literally work himself to death
securing the grants that kept the money flowing into the lab.

There's so much to say about the current state of "research" (which I dare not
call science, because seeking to falsify a hypothesis is a terrible way to win
a grant) but all explanations are clear if you just follow the money.

~~~
lanaius
Surely that's better than trying to win a grant by proving a known-false
hypothesis, which isn't unheard of either.

~~~
mjcohen
If that known-false hypothesis is supported by wealthy people,this can be very
lucrative.

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anonymousDan
I don't understand, don't professors have tenure?

~~~
xaa
Fewer and fewer institutions have tenured professorships these days, for three
reasons I can think of:

\- The pension plans that typically go with long-term employment like tenured
professorships are expensive.

\- Tenure gives professors a protected position and more political power,
which is threatening to administrators.

\- Exactly the reason this article addresses: institutions want to light a
fire under people to force them to optimize for the amount of grant money they
pull in, rather than for scientific achievement, or (gasp) quality of life.

The context of the story suggests that he was not one of the lucky ones,
although it is possible that he was, and the university was going to fire him
on grounds of some breach of contract or with the argument that he was
otherwise breaching his duties as a professor by failing to bring in money.

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pms
It seems that the articles is not available any more... Here is a copy:
[https://www.evernote.com/shard/s5/sh/cb87dfea-7551-46e7-a162...](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s5/sh/cb87dfea-7551-46e7-a162-82da078d15b5/a086e1e698c57954d73586da5e6f8f8e)

Also, here is one of early comments:
[http://musicfordeckchairs.wordpress.com/2014/12/02/wider-
les...](http://musicfordeckchairs.wordpress.com/2014/12/02/wider-lessons/)

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Create
Indeed, this change will only increase the uncertainty for the staff on an LD
contract, who by the time they are offered an IC contract will on average be
more than 40 years old, quite a long time before knowing whether they can look
forward to some long-term stability for themselves and their families.

[http://cds.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulletin/2014/49/Staff%20Asso...](http://cds.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulletin/2014/49/Staff%20Association/1972030?ln=en)

~~~
hobo_mark
Looking at your comment history, you certainly have an axe to grind for some
reason. No idea why you think pasting this over and over on marginally related
stories accomplishes anything.

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mikecmpbll
There's almost no academic pride left in British universities. There may be
amongst the staff and students, but not at the top. So disappointing.

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jszymborski
>We had four papers with original data this year so far, in Cell Death and
Differentiation, Oncogene, Journal of Cell Science and, as I informed Prof
Wilkins this week, one accepted with the EMBO Journal. I was also the editor
of a book and wrote two reviews. Doesn’t count.

>This leads to a interesting spin to the old saying “publish or perish”. Here
it is “publish and perish”.

Sad to think that incredible contributions like that are still not enough to
be deemed an essential part of a research department.

If he was able to publish at that scale with the grants he was getting, then
that's not only perfectly alright, but it's damned impressive.

Incredibly unfortunate to hear of his passing, even worse that the
circumstances aren't clear.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Apparently 'academic research' is now entirely a synonym for 'making money
from funding.'

~~~
saraid216
One of the fun things about the price mechanism is that it reduces
_everything_ down to its valuation in currency. Ethics, knowledge, emotion.
It's terribly convenient.

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skosuri
This sounds nothing like the experience of where I am at (UCLA) in terms of
grant pressure. I don't think the UK has tenured positions though.

~~~
buro9
My girlfriend is tenured, it does exist still. It tends to come with a 5
(five) year probation period so that if you do not achieve the grant quota
they can bump you down to a teaching role and remove you from all research
work.

And do not be deceived, all departments in all British universities are like
this to some extent. It's just that some places (Imperial) appear to be worse
than others, and some environments are more professional and do a better job
of hiding the extraordinary politics from students.

Stefan Grimm has just given you a peek behind the curtain.

~~~
crocowhile
It's not all of Imperial. Faculty of Medicine is always the one that gets on
the news for this kind of bullying.

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mcguire
Have they released a cause of death for Prof. Grimm?

~~~
pc2g4d
Also the mention of an inquest seems to suggest something unusual suspected of
causing the death. (Your average death from natural causes doesn't lead to an
inquest.)

