A UWA Winthrop professor has warned Australia is suffering a brain drain caused by unscrupulous lecturers hijacking students’ work.
Prof James Trevelyan (right) says some of the country’s brightest minds have abandoned their fields of study after becoming disillusioned by the practice, which is widespread and getting worse.
Mostly it involves academic staff adding their names to research papers despite having had little if any input.
He blames university administrators, including his own at UWA, for creating the situation.
“An example here in this uni is that we have something called the Socratic Index, which is based on a computer system called Socrates which tracks publications by researchers,” Prof Trevelyan told the Herald.
He says staff were originally reassured the program would only be used to keep a record of publications for bragging rights.
Inevitably it has become an evaluation tool, and staff not appearing in it regularly enough are punished by being refused study leave.
“The pressure is on people to churn out useless papers,” Prof Trevelyan says.
Tthe Australian Research Council recently issued a statement urging universities to place more emphasis on the impact of research rather than the number of papers published, but it’s done little to address the issue.
One of the problems is students often feel unable to speak out because of the power imbalance with their lecturers.
“History shows that whistleblowers don’t get treated very well,” he wryly notes.
He’s pulled out of joint research projects in the past because of the practice, but says he’s at a point in his career where that’s more likely to hurt his partners, not him.
One case stands out above all others, involving a former student, a lecturer from Cairo, fraud, sackings and multiple murders.
It’s a fascinating story he’ll outline in more detail at a talk for the Glyde-In community centre in East Fremantle on Tuesday October 28 from 10-11am, as part of the centre’s term 4 program. Enrolments start October 15 at 42 Glyde Street or online at http://www.glydein.org.au.
by STEVE GRANT