Research, the Knowledge Creating Industry
[Pluto Series] #0 — Academia, Structurally Fxxked Up
[Pluto Series] #1 — Research, the Knowledge Creating Industry
[Pluto Series] #2 — Academia, Publishing, and Scholarly Communication
[Pluto Series] #3 — Publish, but really Perish?
[Pluto Series] #4 — Publish or Perish, and Lost in Vain
[Pluto Series] #5 — On Where they Publish
[Pluto Series] #6 — On Number of Publications
[Pluto Series] #7 — On Citation Fundamentals
[Pluto Series] #8 — On Citing Practices
[Pluto Series] #9 — On Tracking Citations
[Pluto Series] #10 — On Peer Reviews
[Pluto Series] #11 — Ending the Series
We all feel the thirst to explore the absurdities and problems in the research world, but first thing’s first. In this post we’ll shortly investigate i) what research is, ii) how it became to be what it is today, and iii) why it is so important that we all should care.
To Create Knowledge
To briefly define what research is, I would use these two words “create, knowledge.” OECD has defined research as “Any creative systematic activity undertaken in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this knowledge to devise new applications.” Dictionaries like Merriam-Webster or Oxford focuses more on the “how” of research:
“studious inquiry or examination; especially: investigation or experimentation aimed at the discovery and interpretation of facts, revision of accepted theories or laws in the light of new facts, or practical application of such new or revised theories or laws”
— Merriam-Webster
“systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.”
— Oxford
Though the subtle differences and yet to be achieved consensus on what research is, we may fairly agree on that research is done to create (new) knowledge.
To dig more into the “how” of research, an “hourglass model” well depicts how a research project is conducted. You begin with a broad research question, narrow it down with more specifications, operationalize, collect data, analyze it (and interpret), and then all the communication things including writing it up into a paper. An important thing to note here is that it ends with communicating tasks. Nearly every step in your research would involve looking at research findings of others (or “memory searching” your brain for those you’ve already looked at). That is, research by itself in units can be a singular endeavor, but in a broader sense, each research project fundamentally involves “referencing” to prior ones and becomes referenced by future ones, unless never cited. From this, research, especially the communicating nature of it, can be seen as “circulating system”.
To Share Knowledge
Out of doubt, it is impossible to tell how long we have been craving for knowing things. Or rather, it’s not really important to talk about exactly what year in B.C. humans began to do stupid things multiple times to learn that things happen in similar patterns all the time(well, of course in the context of this series. That historic fact may be important in certain fields.). But I’m fairly confident that humanity was doing research at least before it began to use the communication tools we use nowadays, which probably would have worked as major events to transform the research in the past into what we know as it is now: from languages, papers, and printing, to the most recent innovation, the Internet.
To have more grasp on how research is communicated in its modern form, we may take a look at how it all began to be referred by other “peers” and publicized through collections called “journals”. It is widely accepted that the first record dates back to Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1665 by the Royal Society of London. While broader terms (like medical reviews, or peer review in general) date back further, the more recent one is Medical Essays and Observations published by the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1731.
The history of a journal has a very similar shape. It is, though, not so surprising if you consider that today when we say journals in the academic sense we omit “peer-reviewed”. The first academic journal dates back again to 1665, but this time not the English one but a French, Journal des sçavans. It was two months later in March 1665 when Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society was published. Still, it wasn’t very common to publish scientific findings in these journals, and scientists rather preferred sending their findings in anagrams.
Along their way to 20th century, journals got to be “the fastest and most convenient way” of communicating research findings. They also grew in numbers, to exceed tens of thousands in these days. Now in 2018, there are more than 40,000 journals, although different indexes show different numbers. Or, it’s rather about how you define an academic journal.
Another important change in modern research is that a lot of public money is invested. As the academic world came to find more funding sources, now it is hard to find “gentleman scientists” these days. After World War 2, many of the world began to invest much in higher education, thus the number of university and professional researchers increased. In the UK, the number of universities jumped from 31 in 1962 to 164 in 2015, and the number of academics affiliated with a university has increased to more than hundreds of thousands from only 4,000 before WW2. From the top 15 countries with the largest expenditure on R&D, the proportion of public funding ranged from 15% to 50%. In 2016, part of OECD countries collectively invested 321 billion US dollars, which is only counting the expenditure by governments and even omitting some countries due to unavailable data.
Research not only grew up in numbers, but it has also increased in the degree of development such that nowadays it is highly challenging to be trained in even a single discipline to begin a life as a researcher, while in the past gentleman scientists used to be multiple-talented. In other words, another trait of modern science, or a modern scientist’s, is specialization. As a consequence, interdisciplinary studies are becoming more important, thus requiring more collaboration between different disciplines, not to mention intra-discipline.
To Cherish Knowledge
So we’re all set up with what research is and how it has changed in its recent history. But why do we care? It is said that the number of researchers is less than 1% of the total population. Why do those 99% have to care about the business of 1%? Obviously, because this research findings by 1% would change how we all live. We’ve heard countless times that knowledge is the source of global competitiveness in the 21st century. But beyond competing, we all enjoy the fruits of advance of knowledge at the same time. Technology, civilization, sustainable life, all these things won’t be there if research wasn’t treated with much respect.
Diseases, hunger, disasters, climate change, sustainable energy, all these big questions can’t be answered without research. Or without research, we wouldn’t really have happened to question them. After all, it’s about questioning. That’s what made us humans different from any other living things.
If all that sounded too philosophic or epic, here’s a more practical story. The humanity at large is spending an annual 1.7 trillion dollars on R&D. That’s as huge as 10% of the whole GDP of the United States in 2017. Or on an individual’s level, knowing more evolves your brain.
We’ve explored research, and in the upcoming post we will deal with the system in which research is done, “academia”, and the system in which it is communicated, “scholarly communication”. Thanks always for support, and please clap and share the story with your friends, families, and peers and promote more discussion.
[Pluto Series] #0 — Academia, Structurally Fxxked Up
[Pluto Series] #1 — Research, the Knowledge Creating Industry
[Pluto Series] #2 — Academia, Publishing, and Scholarly Communication
[Pluto Series] #3 — Publish, but really Perish?
[Pluto Series] #4 — Publish or Perish, and Lost in Vain
[Pluto Series] #5 — On Where they Publish
[Pluto Series] #6 — On Number of Publications
[Pluto Series] #7 — On Citation Fundamentals
[Pluto Series] #8 — On Citing Practices
[Pluto Series] #9 — On Tracking Citations
[Pluto Series] #10 — On Peer Reviews
[Pluto Series] #11 — Ending the Series
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The series was supposed to be released every Monday, but the first 2 (this one and the next) are going to be a bit off the plan due to the author (me) suffering influenza A.
