Few barriers to a more open, engaging, and impactful research environment are as deeply entrenched as the incentive structures that shape academic careers.
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Overview
Few barriers to a more open, engaging, and impactful research environment are as deeply entrenched as the incentive structures that shape academic careers. Hiring, review, promotion, and tenure systems too often reward narrow measures of individual achievement over collaboration, transparency, public impact, and other contributions essential to a thriving research ecosystem.
To change that, ORCA is partnering with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Aspen Institute Science & Society Program on the Modernizing Academic Appointment and Advancement (MA3) Challenge. MA3 provides funding and support to U.S. colleges and universities willing to rethink how academic contributions are valued and rewarded. By bringing institutions together in a learning community and supporting bold, practical experiments in hiring, review, promotion, and tenure, MA3 is helping build academic reward systems that better reflect how research happens today and create a culture that is more collaborative, responsive, transparent, and impactful.
Target Communities
Senior university leaders
Department chairs and other faculty
Professional society leaders
Goals
To develop academic reward systems that foster a collaborative, responsive, and transparent research environment.
To tackle challenges in existing hiring and/or advancement language, processes, and policies.
To develop and foster capacity for institutional change work within the academy.
To advance beyond the discussion phase into implementation supporting actions that implement tangible changes to academic appointment and advancement.
Outputs and Selected Press
Check out the MA3 inaugural cohort
Dana Foundation’s President talks about Aligning Incentives to the Future of Science
DORA blog: Strong Momentum for Reform in the U.S.: What the MA3 Challenge Signals
Retraction Watch blog: $1.5 million program targets changes to academic incentives
How to Get Involved
If you are an administrator who would like to learn more about this opportunity, or a philanthropic organization hoping to join the funder cohort, please contact Caitlin Schleicher at caitlin@orcaopen.org.
Current and Prior Funders
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
Dana Foundation
Rita Allen Foundation
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation