Two cultures: "them and us" in the academic world

Ralph Kenna

doi:10.5488/CMP.23.23002

Two cultures: "them and us" in the academic world

Ralph Kenna

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Abstract

return on public investment. Impact opens new opportunities for what are known as "professional services": as scientometrical tools bestow some with con1dence they can quantify quality, the impact agenda brings lay measurements to evaluation of research. This paper is partly inspired by the famous "two cultures" discussion instigated by C.P. Snow over 60 years ago. He saw a chasm between different academic disciplines and I see a chasmbetweenacademicsandprofessionalservices, boundintocontact throughcompetingtargets. Thispaper draws on my personal experience and experiences recounted to me by colleagues in different universities in the UK. It is aimed at igniting discussions amongst people interested in improving the academic world and it is intended in a spirit of collaboration and constructiveness. As a professional services colleague said, what I have to say "needs to be said". It is my pleasure to submit this paper to the Festschrift devoted to the 60th birthday of a renowned physicist, my good friend and colleague Ihor Mryglod. Ihor's role as leader of the Institute for Condensed Matter Physics in Lviv has been essential to generating some of the impact described in this paper and forms a key element of the story I wish to tell.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1-20
Number of pages	20
Journal	Condensed Matter Physics
Volume	23
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.5488/CMP.23.23002 https://doi.org/10.5488/CMP.23.23002
Publication status	Published - 22 May 2020

Bibliographical note

Condensed Matter Physics journal will be published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY) license with the authors retaining a copyright to their articles. This license permits anyone to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt an article’s content, without obtaining permission from the author(s) or CMP journal, provided a proper attribution is given to the author(s) and to the source of the material. Please check full license terms and requirements at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Keywords

Impact
REF
Research evaluation
Scientometrics
Statistical physics
Thermodynamics
Two cultures

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Condensed Matter Physics
Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)

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10.5488/CMP.23.23002Licence: CC BY
10.5488/CMP.23.23002

PublishedFinal published version, 2.02 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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Two cultures: "them and us" in the academic world

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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