Subject diversity improving globally but US and UK buck trend

Andy Sterling, professor of science and technology policy at the University of Sussex: “If you leave it to the scientific community, then the existing structures of power and privilege inside science will actually drive research in some directions and not others." Indeed. There is that famous Max Planck passage that's been compactly translated as "Science progresses one funeral at a time". Yes, all fields in academia have their fads and their power structures. Revolutionaries may ultimately take over, but then, as Max Planck suggests, they become the new establishment, the new power center, and they establish the new orthodoxy. Robert Michel ("Democratic Parties", 1915) said much the same. We can try to make things more "democratic", but things have a way of getting concentrated in the hands of small clique. And then there's Thomas Kuhn ("The Structure of Scientific Revolution"). Big breakthroughs come not from the establishment but from people working on the outside of existing power structures. But it's not obvious how to make the academic enterprise more democratic.

Universities must stop operating like big cruise ships scattered across the vast ocean and being buffeted about by ripples and waves alike. The real issue is not simply about disciplinary specialization or diversity. It is about universities and governments seem to be unable to find the true purpose of a true mission for universities and that is not difficult to find. The fundamental purpose of universities is to contribute to the resolution of persistent problems and issues at all levels of societal functioning: individual level, group, organizational, community and national levels. Contributions to the resolution of such problems can come for all disciplines. For example psychology departments should streamline their curriculum offerings and their research and community outreach to address individual issues with respect to mental health, addiction, getting to know people. Management studies departments can focussed their staff and students to conduct research on organizational.issues, business challenges, communication pathways, other human relations issues. Engineering students and staff should seek to collaborate on research to develop engineering solutions to current and future engineering challenges that is of major concern to some area, city, community in their society. Education faculties can conduct research to help schools (primary and secondary) to resolve problems with curtivulum, students behavior or school management. In fact such research can even be interdisciplinary where academic staff and/or students from faculties of education, social sciences and management studies can collaborate to conduct the studies and develop proposals to resolve same. Funding should be primarily devoted and awarded to universities engaging in such research. This approach makes such universities more relevant, more connected to their society in the UK or US and elsewhere. Isn't this a primary concern that gives universities a vision and a mission for the short and long term?