Research has transformed into an industry and universities have become the major sites of research production. CP Snow, the British novelist delineated the notion of two cultures: The scientific and the humanities or creative. Snow lamented this separation as both are indispensable.
Science operates on intellect and reason, while humanities touch the heart and resonate with emotions. Ideally, education should integrate both realms. We should foster a passion for evidence-based scientific research and a cultivated mind nurtured by humanities at the same time.
Take, for instance, Moyeen Khan, a former Dhaka University physics professor who received his PhD from the University of Sussex, who also delves into poetry. US-based Bangladeshi academics, economist Haider Ali Khan and political scientist Ali Riaz, both poets, exemplify this amalgamation.
Tahmina Anam, a Bangladeshi author, holds a PhD in Anthropology from Harvard University. Similarly, Amitav Ghosh, renowned for his literary works, earned his doctorate in anthropology from Oxford University. Arundhati Roy, the celebrated writer, also boasts a background in architecture.
Even in the realm of music, Pakistani singer Momina Mustehsan has a double major in biomedical engineering and applied mathematics from Stony Brook University, New York. Madhuri Dixit, a leading Bollywood star and Sarah Zaker, a Bangladesh actor, both have backgrounds in biochemistry. Nashid Kamal, trained in statistics with a PhD in demography, pursued a career as a Nazrul Sangeet artist. Similarly, Chanchal Khan’s passion for Rabindra Sangeet did not impede his career as a development professional. The late writer Humayun Ahmed had a PhD in chemistry, and his brother Zafar Iqbal holds a doctorate in computer science.
There exists a chemistry, an elective affinity, between the scientific mind and artistry. While Snow's two-culture theory holds at a collective level, individuals often successfully merge these domains. Snow himself was a physical chemist and a novelist at the same time.
Consider India, which has nurtured exceptional writers, technologists, and scientists alike. They have excelled across economics, statistics, anthropology, mathematics, history, software, political science, and management sciences. India has produced leading historians and civil servants, sometimes within the same family. For instance, S Jaishankar, the astute external affairs minister, built his career as a foreign service bureaucrat, and is now gaining prominence as a writer, while his brother, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, is a renowned history professor at UCLA.
The reputation of Indian civil servants turned writers and politicians extends beyond national borders, as exemplified by Shashi Tharoor.
Recently, a speech by Indian journalist Palki Sharma garnered attention on social media. While some may disagree with her excessive nationalism bordering on chauvinism, her prowess as a communicator is undeniable. Sharma graduated from an Indian academic institution, not from prestigious Ivy League institutions. Similarly, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, a renowned chair professor at University of California, Los Angeles, earned his PhD from Delhi School of Economics. His interest in economic history led him to a career in history and ultimately to Paris's College de France, leveraging his knowledge of history and French language.
This speaks volumes about the quality of Indian universities and educational institutions, often not adequately reflected in conventional university rankings.
Reuters annually publishes a list of the top 100 most innovative universities globally, a vital metric considering creativity as the lifeblood of a university. Stanford University consistently tops this list, followed by Harvard and MIT. Of the top 100, 51 are located in the United States, with only two Chinese universities making the cut. Korea stands out as the only Asian country with two universities in the top 50 list: Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) established in 1971 and Seoul National University, established in 1946.
Seoul National University filed 907 patents between 2012 and 2017, while Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology filed 695 patents, and the National University of Singapore filed 439 patents.
Having visited Korean universities and worked briefly with Korean academics, I can attest to their quality.
China leads in the number of scientific publications, followed by the US and India. However, China also belongs to a more dubious list: The number of retracted papers due to plagiarism and academic dishonesty. This unethical practice is fuelled by a cottage industry catering to mail-order establishments and individual entrepreneurs, bolstered by IT and AI. It is becoming increasingly challenging to detect fraudulent papers.
Saudi Arabia leads in paper retractions, followed by Pakistan and Russia. China ranks ahead of Egypt, Malaysia, Iran, and India. The Chinese authorities show no tolerance for such academic dishonesty and a well-known professor at Huazhong Agricultural University at Wuhan was fired earlier this year.
As academic institutions compete for ranking and universities emphasize publication as a measure of faculty productivity which is tied to rankings, the incentive for academic corruption grows.
There appears to be an inverse relationship between publications and high-quality scholarship. In the past, professors devoted more time to class preparation and expanding their knowledge. Now, the focus on publications often compromises teaching quality.
Creativity is the essence of science, but it must be exploited for scholarship and research, not for dishonest purposes of inflating publication lists with dodgy papers.
Habibul Haque Khondker is a sociology professor at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi who previously taught at the National University of Singapore.