[Todos] Fwd: The corruption series (42)

[fabio vicentini]

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From: fabio vicentini <fmvicent en gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 3:25 AM
Subject: Fwd: The corruption series (42)
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: fabio vicentini <fmvicent en gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 3:10 AM
Subject: The corruption series (42)
To: "presidencia en conicet.gov.ar" <presidencia en conicet.gov.ar>,
FulbrightNEXUS en iie.org, info en fundacionsadosky.org.ar, info en mincyt.gob.ar,
prensa en mincyt.gov.ar


Canto LXII: Throwing a bottle in the ocean (2)

 ---------------------------------

Buenos Aires, June 17,  2013

Dear Colleague:

 Subject: A query

 After working 15 years as an OR practitioner at the DU PONT chemical
company, and 10 years at the steel-making TECHINT organization, I entered
the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) as full-time professor in the math
department.

UBA has 13 schools and one of them, the School of Exact Sciences (FCEyN),
is divided into 12 departments: Physics, Computer Science, Mathematics,
etc. The math department has 60 professors. I was one of them for a while.

 As soon as I landed in the school, I was instructed in the rules of the
game. Firstly, and most important, I should write papers for peer-reviewed
journals. Secondly, I should submit requests for research grants. Thirdly,
I should attend scientific meetings. The number of papers should be as
large as possible (content not being essential). The grant's amount should
be as large as possible. Academic meetings in California or Paris are to be
preferred to those taking place in my home country.

 Once in a while they call for a contest (concurso) for Calculus, Algebra,
Topology, etc. Mathematicians do not know what applied mathematics is, so
they will call for the catchall "Applied Mathematics" label whatever it
contained.

Three academics (jurado) presided over the concurso to choose the best
candidate for the applied mathematics’ niche. There were two candidates, a
youthful rookie who had already concocted a bunch of papers on differential
equations, and myself (60) with no papers at all, but 30 years working
experience as an operations researcher. The jurado counted the number of
papers of each candidate, and the youngster scored 22 goals to naught, and
won the academic match.

 In spite of my defeat I was permitted, for a while, to lecture on
OR-related subjects, mainly because I was the only genuine applied
mathematician in the school. Also I did some moonlighting in OR consulting
for industrial firms, and took my students to manufacturing plants as
research assistants, but as soon as it became clear that I would not write
papers I was dismissed.

Right now I am doing a case study on academic corruption. The main point is
that academics are forced to publish bullshit because they are measured by
the number of papers rather than their content.

This letter advances the question “Is writing bullshit to peer-rewied
journals a worlwide tendency? ” I will take your response as confidential.  I
may use the information, but I will keep you and your institution out of my
study. I would appreciate it if you might provide me with your assessment
on this delicate matter.

Sincerely,

Fabio Vicentini, PhD

Operations Research Consultant
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