Stian Westlake on research ecosystem health: rigour, pluralism, and impact
ersatzben · x · 2026-10-31
Stian Westlake proposes a framework for evaluating the health of a social science research ecosystem built on three attributes: rigour, pluralism, and orientation to impact.
- Written amid legitimacy debates sparked by the Vanderbilt/Washington University report on the state of humanities scholarship
- Each attribute, when deficient, produces distinctive and observable failure modes
- The three interact in interesting ways — sometimes reinforcing, sometimes in tension
- The framework applies to research fields as a whole, not single projects; it differs from REF assessment criteria and describes characteristics of a healthy system, not prerequisites like funding, talent, or infrastructure
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