Academia is no more an independent institution of society. It’s role is to get supremacy over others, serving as spearhead of the destructive power structure.

Christian Jost is right to point to personal enrichment. The role of academia in society today is to enrich yourself, on the cost of the common good. Academia has become the spearhead to serve the global materialist consumer society.

Academic leaders should be wise, intelligent and full of love. Because many people (students) are influenced by them. Students which become often leading positions in society and furthermore they influence as well. So it is very simple that the attributes, we would like to have in our society especially must be represented by those who influence the society at most. ...

But wait? - What is the most important thing in academian leadership today? - Exactly: to acquire money ... so that is the leading message in our society ledership.... hmh. How far did this message bring us? - Exactely: more pollution, more war, more seperation according to teached mind set of "holy consumption".

Academia is no more an independent institution of society. It’s role is to get supremacy over others, serving as spearhead of the destructive power structure.

Christian Jost is right to point to personal enrichment. The role of academia in society today is to enrich yourself, on the cost of the common good. Academia has become the spearhead to serve the global materialist consumer society.

Dear Henrik G.S. Arvidsson, in my opinion, the role of the university in democratic societies should be mainly what it always was up to the end of the last century, that is, the university must form the ruling class of the country. The University must train future politicians, executives, researchers, judges, managers, etc. In a nutshell, the University must train the "thinking minds" of a country in an ethical way (according to commonly accepted and perceived ethics) and objective (meritocratic), regardless of political, religious, sexual orientation, etc. and above all regardless of the social and economic status. Unfortunately, with the end of political ideologies and perhaps also with globalization, in my opinion, both positive and in any case unstoppable, which took place starting from the 90s of the last century, many political classes and men of power began to work massively (i.e. not sporadically as perhaps had sometimes happened) for their personal interests and for their political side in terms of maintaining power, and electoral consensus rather than in the interests of society, the country or the world. To accomplish this, it was clear that it was necessary to control and sometimes subdue all the vital ganglia of society. To control the vital ganglia of society, politicians have implemented and exploited new "ad hoc" laws and invented the "useful idiots (UI)" ie the yes men. Thus in the last twenty years or so politics has placed or favored the rise to the top of the University, the National Health System, Public Research Bodies, etc., etc, etc, up to the humblest of ushers (with all respect for the ushers of the world and their work) i.e. everywhere, their UI. Virtually no one who is not in line with the philosophy of the boss, i.e. of the UI in charge, can emerge and make a career. The exceptions, if any, are perhaps more unique than rare. On the other hand, politicians have also realized that talking directly to the "people" with slogans and surprising sentences as in the cinema, sometimes without meaning or completely falses and out of place, and above all always saying what the people want to hear, pays a lot in terms of electoral consent. Therefore, they masterfully exploit all mass media and especially social media.

Best Wishes

Leonardo

Leonardo Cannizzaro and Henrik G.S. Arvidsson

I like the expression used by Leonardo Cannizzaro, "ushers" of academia. It precisely describes the ascent of a class of "academians", men and women who got their qualification in a purely materialist environment which uses mathematical models for optimizing cost-benefit balance in institutions. The fragilisation of curricula produced by the Bologna model organization of studies and the collection of multiple credits with a narrow range of intellectual perspective have contrbuted to the rise of the "ushers" to the status of powerful demiurgs and apparatchiks.

Dear@ Christian Jost I fully agree with you.

Actually it is not just the right ..

Samera. See my initial text...in the bottom! :-)

The role of academia in society is construed as analogous to the role of positive emotions in human beings.

I would argue that the proper way to make academia relevant again is to truly make it accessible to all. By creating an opportunity for everyone to be an academic--more people will strive for and place value on the practice. Cost will no longer be a barrier. Oftentimes modern academia is regarded as a capitalist institution profiting off of the need for a degree in order to achieve high-paying jobs (and that is arguably true). Still a privilege, acquiring an undergraduate degree has become the standard. The trillions of dollars of student debt in this country is deplorable and quite frankly bad for academia's reputation. Let us free students of the burden of debt and the capitalist infrastructure of universities and allow students to fall in love with academia once again--society will follow. I speak not as an expert but as a recent college graduate who has witnessed first-hand the shift in perspective of today's students.

I think this is a great questions and the answer is very complicated. It requires deep analysis and may differ from discipline to discipline . In western type democracies there are similarities among countries, but differences as well based on what is considered acceptable level of government interference in the economic political system. Academia is an established institution within each society. Many disciplines like sciences, there is no time for academia to broadly educate the future citizens. With the modern system of intensive education there is little time for professors and student to convene discuss and play a role in support of the common good, which is the formation of deep democracy providing for all citizens equal opportunity and chance to advance in the society. Disciplines like economics and Business played a negative role in forming future societies to address social injustice elimination of poverty and crime. and pollution. Economists were preoccupied with short term profit maximization for firms at the expense of social cost .Then in the US events like Black Lives Matter and Covid 19 come to remind us that we are very far from what a civilized democracy is supposed to be. Covid 19 affects the poor people more than any other group in the society and Black Lives Matter reminds us racism is not history in the US. Thus academia failed. Before any changes begin we need to begin with recognition of the failure and only then academia along with the entire society should begin thinking for embarking to a better society. Thanks for the opportunity George K Zestos

I think this is a great questions and the answer is very complicated. It requires deep analysis and may differ from discipline to discipline . In western type democracies there are similarities among countries, but differences as well based on what is considered acceptable level of government interference in the economic political system. Academia is an established institution within each society. Many disciplines like sciences, however, are apolitical so in these disciplines there is no time for academia to broadly educate the future citizens. With the modern system of intensive education there is little time for professors and student to convene discuss and play a role in support of the common good, which is the formation of deep democracy providing for all citizens equal opportunity and chance to advance in the society. Disciplines like economics and Business played a negative role in forming future societies to address social injustice elimination of poverty and crime. Economists were preoccupied with short term profit maximization for firms at the expeUS

Too many tasks at once are attributed to academia - nowadays academician has to be a good lecturer, personal super-adviser of a student, scientific discussant, scientific works writer, manager, project proposal writer, good project implementer, market developer, mass media participant, etc. Not too much in order to be a leader in society?

The role of academia and higher education in the effective functioning and development of societies, the economy, the state, etc. is very large and obvious. However, due to the rapid technological progress, the structural transformation of the economy, climate change and the growing different categories of risks in the context of the development of civilization, an important issue is what activities, changes in functioning and organization, implementation of modern technologies, innovative solutions, etc. in the education system higher education should be applied so that universities can efficiently adapt to changes taking place in economies, societies, the development of civilization, and solving key problems of humanity.

Best wishes,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

Many journalists still think that they need to cite research papers in order to support their speculations. I can often see references to the Open Access (OA) journals like Plos ONE or Nature Communications for example, because they are easy to access. One needs to pay to read a paper published in Elsevier, Taylor and Francis or Emerald journals.

Communication is at the heart of politics; without interaction, discussion, conciliation and persuasion there would be no legitimacy in the actions of political organisations. The 21st Century is an era of both mass and personalised communication. While much political communication travels along secure lines between agents of states, it also echoes around parliamentary chambers, is reported in the media and then remediated by the users of social platforms and weblogs. Communication developments, and the intersections between old and new communication environments, raise some very important questions about the linkages between political actors, from supranational to the individual, and the citizen. At the broadest level we can enquire of the state of the political public sphere and how discussion and debate is encouraged by institutions and the extent of public participation. https://ecpr.eu/Events/Event/SectionDetails/243