THE-Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings research success survey

The fact that we have issues in academia and varieties of opinions is not really the biggest problem. Identifying areas of concern is good (although the areas are mainly defined by the individuals designing the surveys). However, for me the biggest issue is not having concerns or points of crisis but asking the question who has solutions and who can implement them. Having been at many institutions across the globe, I view our biggest issue as a lack of leadership and a surfeit of bureaucracy (and I have written about this in these pages and elsewhere). I look around at all of those who view themselves as part of the institutional 'leadership' teams and am saddened by the lack of quality, training or broad understanding reflected therein (at best one hopes they don't do more damage rather than actually drive meaningful change and progress). If we continue to use the models of governance and leadership we have today, there is no reason to believe the future will be all that different from the present.