My mentor and friend K. Vela Velupillai has published his thoughts on anarchy in teaching and research, how research themes and winner-picking are doomed to failure, and how research and educational innovation should be allowed, in fact encouraged, to fail.

Abstract. In this paper I attempt to make a case for anarchy in research against the current practice of picking winners in universities at advanced levels of education and research. By considering a paradigmatic example of freedom in speculative intellectual activities leading to unintended consequences of enormous benefit to mankind, I try to substantiate a case for this. The example I consider is the way issues in the foundations of mathematics paved the way for what came to be known as the it revolution. It is a counter-factual narrative and may – hopefully, will – provide an antidote to the current orthodoxy’s regimented non-vision of “picking winners”, ex ante, without any historical substantiation.

[Download the paper]

4 Responses to “In Praise of Anarchy in Teaching and Research”

1. Brian O' Hanlon

   07/04/2010 at 3:00 pm

   Winner picking basically sums up the approach taken in many of the design and innovation oriented university faculties. My own personal motivation in working for a company such as Zoe developments was to approach innovation and design in a different way. One could not say in that company, I designed 'X' or I built 'Y', because the company worked more along the lines described for Keystone players - taking advantage of the value in the entire network. The approach to see 'networks' or N-sided markets, rather than the old markets per se. A quote from Albert A. Foer's paper at the antitrust institute:

   The authors [Iansiti and Levien] want to separate pricing from product and relate it to the wellbeing of the ecosystem as a whole.

   [Break]

   Many conservatives who would like to see all property rights enthroned, if it were politically feasible, are focusing their attention on turning intellectual property into something absolute, meaning that the person owning the central intellectual property asset will have full discretion on whether and how to share it, without regard to teh balancing of other values that antitrust has traditionally brought to the table.

   The trouble is though, all companies are complex, and companies can follow the keystone/ecosystem well in one regard, while following the more damaging 'dominator' one, in other aspects of the business.

   http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/archives/files/356.pdf

2. Brian O' Hanlon

   07/04/2010 at 11:45 pm

   I was trying to put together some thoughts on the whole subject at a blog entry, Anarchy in Research.

   http://designcomment.blogspot.com/2010/04/anarchy-in-research.html

3. Stephen

   08/04/2010 at 10:30 pm

   Cheers Brian, was in the process of doing the same thing, it's a fascinating topic to think about. But without process control, what role is there for middle management?

4. Brian O' Hanlon

   09/04/2010 at 8:37 pm

   I'll get back to you again Stephen - I had a good read of Velupillai's paper yesterday evening and I have some comments I wish to raise with both of you.