Академическая наука должна оставаться меритократией, основанной на заслугах, а не на привилегиях

Academia — and by extension, nonprofit biomedical research — is fundamentally a meritocracy. It values output, excellence, credentials, peer review and empirical evidence. Success is defined by hard work empowered by particular skills and training that produces measurable results, not affluence, family background or social class. Academia is dedicated to knowledge, both the teaching and translation of current learning and the pursuit of new knowledge, new discoveries that can advance and improve the human condition. It is not for everyone. Few have the capacity to fare well in academia. Teaching knowledge and discovering new knowledge require specific talents and endless patience. It is an arduous and expensive endeavor. Society requires a significant return on its investment, and no society has the resources to fully support both excellence in academia and all who might express interest. To be sure, academia is an imperfect meritocracy. It remains bedeviled by prestige bias (the tendency to believe more strongly in those deemed high-status, successful or admired), a reliance on networks and connections, structural and funding disparities and the enduring prejudices of gender, race, ethnicity and preferred traditional norms. These are not easy obstacles to overcome. Medical research historically treated the male body as the default standard, largely excluding women from clinical trials due to fears of harming reproductive health and a myopic focus on male physiology. The resulting gaps in accurately diagnosing and treating female patients persist, a shortcoming echoed in other socioeconomic groups overlooked or ignored by science. It wasn’t until 1993 that Congress passed a law requiring the National Institutes of Health to include women and minorities in clinical research. Inequities remain. Meritorious science is an ongoing process girded by fairness, transparency and measurable data. Anything less is vulnerable to mediocrity and a poor return of investment. Academia is also a democracy — at least in some key ways. Faculties are sometimes given voting rights on policies and limited voice in hirings, though day-to-day operations are managed by administrators, individual principal investigators and funders. A central tenet of a vibrant and functioning democracy must be present and active in academia and science: the support and promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion to recruit, retain and promote successful academicians. When recruiting new faculty, for example, an academic (or research) institution needs to cast the widest possible net to ensure persons of different backgrounds are aware of the opportunity. Search committees must be educated to avoid unconscious biases. Only then is it possible to select the best candidate based solely on academic accomplishments and potential regardless of socioeconomic factors. And once that person becomes a member of the academic community, it is imperative that it is a welcoming, fair and safe environment for all. In today’s society, these commonsensical observations have become lost in a muddle of conflicting, counter-productive agendas that have little to do with teaching or discovering knowledge — or with excellence in academia. In fact, sometimes quite the opposite. As a result, we find ourselves too often conflating and celebrating mediocrity as achievement to our lasting detriment. Brenner is a physician-scientist and president and chief executive of Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla.