Page 25 - Academic and Research Book_WEB

The increasing dependence on different metrics on part of the various decision-making committees
and agencies on one hand, and the stiff competitive environment experienced by those seeking
positions, research grants, awards on the other, are perverting the incentive system (Lakhotia,
2017a, b; Edwards and Roy, 2017; Paul 2018). As noted by Edwards and Roy (op. cit.), “If a
critical mass of scientists become untrustworthy, a tipping point is possible in which the scientific
enterprise itself becomes inherently corrupt and public trust is lost, risking a new dark age with
devastating consequences to humanity. Academia and federal agencies should better support
science as a public good, and incentivize altruistic and ethical outcomes, while de-emphasizing
output.”
For research to be, and which it must be, an essential catalytic ingredient for sustainable advances,
Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is essential. RRI requires transparent interactive process
between societal actors and innovators to achieve mutually responsive acceptability, sustainability,
and societal desirability of the innovation process and its marketable products (Von Schomberg,
2012; Das, 2019). The current COVID-19 pandemic has brought out the pitfalls of compromise in
RRI. H.H. Thorp, the current editor-in-chief of Science journals, while highlighting the worries
of over-promising witnessed in present times states (Thorp, 2020), “When science addressed the
HIV/AIDS crisis, it took years of careful virology, drug development, and epidemiology. The global
scientific assault on COVID-19 is faster, and as I see the research that comes to Science and that
appears on pre-print servers, I am hopeful that science will deliver on this challenge, too. But I worry
that engendering false hope will cause complacency that will deprive us of the time needed to find
a lasting solution. And I worry about lasting damage if science overpromises.” The credo of RRI is
under-promise but overdo!

The origin and rapid mushrooming of predatory journals is an example of the disregard of research
integrity and ethical conduct (Lakhotia, 2015; 2017b; Beall, 2012; Petrisor, 2018; Patwardhan, et
al., 2018; Patwardhan and Thakur, 2019) on part of all the stake-holders — the policy-makers and
administrators (who define and implement rules for academic jobs/rewards and implement them),
authors (who write such so-called “research papers” for publication), and editors and publishers (who
run such journals to publish anything for money).The increasing commercialization, coincident with
the decreasing role of academic institutions, has made research publication a high-profit business
venture.
Another serious issue is the mental health of researchers, especially the Ph.D. students and young
principal investigators. Although less talked about in the past, this aspect has received considerable
attention in recent years. The above-discussed factors that lead to unethical conduct by researchers
also vitiate the environment in the research work place. The worst, albeit often silent, sufferers of
the vitiated environment at the work place are the young students and other researchers (Guthrie,
et al., 2018; Nature Editorial, 2019; Hari Dass, 2019). The principal investigators also suffer mental
health issues because of the pressure to ‘deliver’ and compete for the shrinking quantum of research
funds. Additionally, they also suffer because the young students who join research as Ph.D. students
have often not been prepared for research. Yet they join research either just to get a higher degree or
to earn something till they can get an alternative source. Such conditions not only disrupt academic
integrity and promote unethical conduct but also lead to a frustrated mental state of even serious
researchers. Research labs in countries like India, especially in Science and Technology domains,
suffer more on this count since the more competent among the aspiring research students are
often encouraged to go abroad, which depletes the pool of serious and competent young research
community in the country.

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