Research on research misconduct, as introduced at the outset, has shown that there is a fourth option to “love it – change it – leave it”. We would call this off-the-grid option “cheat your way through the game”.
Since bad apple [1] theories are too simplistic to explain deviant behaviour, such as research misconduct (from questionable research practices to outright fraud), this study made a contribution to organisational culture studies. More specifically, by employing interviews and analysing open survey questions, we qualitatively studied cultural aspects in astronomy. Setting the basis for an evaluative inquiry and future action researchers, we asked astronomers (the practitioners of this field) to reimagine output formats, evaluation procedures and research itself. While there were some astronomers who advocated for no change or claimed that the system is not perfect, but there is no better way, the sheer amount of alternative suggestions to the status-quo was overwhelming. To say it in Haven’s words, we found that “the research process should be considered in its totality” (Haven, 2021: 177; italics in the original). Not only do the many pieces of alternative solutions give us a better image of what the research process in its totality involves, but also many participating astronomers expressed explicitly that a paradigm shift in research culture is due.
In summary, this study found that astronomers wish for a diversification and (digital) improvement of output formats, evaluation procedures and peer review. Depending on the context, output in various forms, such as blog posts, data & reduction code, giving talks and the publication of negative results is said to be valuable contributions to the community and society. Ac-counting for many more aspects of the research process than what performance indicators currently measure, such as alternative output formats, managerial tasks or testing out risky ideas, would make evaluation procedures value research(ers) as a whole. This is an important aspect of the culture change that many participating astronomers proposed. The need for a more inclusive and healthy research culture, including interdisciplinary and autonomous research, was expressed.
Based on the many impressions from our study participants and other studies & initiatives, we concluded with recommendations on how to shift from the current organisational paradigm towards a more participative one, which is more democratic and inclusive. A participative culture may entail trust and openness, which is what many respondents wish for. An open knowledge management infrastructure, which contains and interlinks all forms of diverse output, may be the future of science communication. Such a living repository of knowledge and data bares the potential to provide rapid dissemination of knowledge to the community and the public, improved replicability & accessibility, reducing information overload and introducing innovative ways for doing peer review. All in all, such an infrastructure would likely foster better quality research and a more collaborative culture in astronomy.
We propose future action research to be done on the basis of this and previous studies’ findings on what astronomers value and would like to change about their research culture and organisational structures. While our sample selection did not target representativeness, the size of the sample and the variety in the responses leads to our assumption that our findings may in large part be applied to astronomy as a whole. Given the congruence with the findings of other studies, we suppose that many of our findings may even be generalizable towards the academic culture as a whole. We advocate that it is time to move beyond the meta-research performed in the field of science studies, which conventionally studies its objects and subjects from a "fly on the wall perspective" (Fricke, 2014), to a self-reflexive action research, which involves the participation of social scientists, scientists from other field and stakeholders. Action research may inspire the transformation of science towards a more democratic endeavour. Practitioners (such as researchers from a specific field) may adopt self-reflexive methodologies, such as the evaluative inquiry, in order to continuously applying its principles to move forward with this transformation on their own accord.
As Munafò et al. (2017: 7) state “the challenges to reproducible science are systemic and cultural”. The involvement of many different stakeholders – including beneficiaries of the publish-or-perish culture (Moosa, 2018), such as traditional journals or even established scientists, who benefit from the Matthew effect (Pluchino et al., 2018) – makes it difficult to break out of this locked-in culture. Hence, we are not arguing that the transformation towards participative leadership is easy, nor that it would not entail any (disadvantageous) constitutive effects, which are difficult to anticipate. However, by accepting our VUCA world and that social organisations are inherently self-organised, we may find ways to appreciate uncertainty and to constructively deal with it deliberately. Participative organisations have the potential to transcend the dichotomy between autonomy and leadership that science has faced ever since it has become a profession. In order to transform, we need to be aware that the “bad apple narrative” is as simplistic as the linear machine like model of an organisation. We need to face that metrics are a form qualitization, which strips off the complexity from reality to create the illusion of certainty and objectivity. We need to embrace diversity, reflexivity, deliberative democracy, experimentation and ambiguity.
You may not need to love it, change it, leave it, nor cheat your way through the system. By simply being the change you want to see in the word, you contribute to its transformation. Transform it!
Footnotes
[1] “This is not a case of a few bad apples — it’s all the apples.”; Lauren Chambers about inequality issues in astronomy; in “A Breakup Letter With Astronomy, From a Young Black Woman” (https://onezero.medium.com/a-break-up-letter-with-astronomy-from-a-young-black-woman-a30de24fe209)
Table of Contents
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2.1. Indicators as Quality inscriptions
2.2. Publish-or-Perish – a part of a neoliberalist academic culture
2.3. Calls for a transformational culture change