It sounds like you’re talking about researchers outside of academia. Academics aren’t paid directly for their research, and the objective “importance” of our research counts for literally nothing in tenure and promotion decisions, compared to more mundane metrics like how many papers we’ve published and in what venues, and whether it is deemed suitably impressive (by disciplinary standards, which again have zero connection to objective importance) by senior evaluators within the discipline.
A tenured academic, like a supreme court justice, has a job for life which leaves them far less vulnerable to incentives than almost anyone else.
It sounds like you’re talking about researchers outside of academia. Academics aren’t paid directly for their research, and the objective “importance” of our research counts for literally nothing in tenure and promotion decisions, compared to more mundane metrics like how many papers we’ve published and in what venues, and whether it is deemed suitably impressive (by disciplinary standards, which again have zero connection to objective importance) by senior evaluators within the discipline.
A tenured academic, like a supreme court justice, has a job for life which leaves them far less vulnerable to incentives than almost anyone else.
Why was this downvoted?