Issues of integrity lead to drama

A computer science guru, who also dabbles in playwrighting, enjoys photography, recreational cycling and stained-glass window-making, is a colourful story of its own.

When you add in the fact that UQ Professor David Abramson’s dramatical production Purely Academia takes pointed aim at the ethical dilemmas of researchers’ lives, the intrigue grows.

“The thing about academia is the level of intelligence is generally high across the board, and when that is used in a negative manner, it can be a terrifying reflection of human nature,” Professor Abramson said.

“Purely Academic aims to promote honest discussion about professional ethics and practices in contemporary academia.

“At the heart of the story is a researcher who rises rapidly through the ranks and is prepared to walk over anyone and anything that stands in his way.

“There are broader questions posed about how we evaluate academic output and whether we are encouraging people to adapt their behaviour to exploit rankings and metrics.”

The background to how the play evolved is almost as fascinating as the content itself.

Professor Abramson – who has expertise in high performance computing, distributed and parallel computing, computer architecture and software engineering – was on summer holidays in 2011-12.

Over 30 years as an academic, having occupied most positions from junior academic to departmental chair, he’d observed what he thought were several troubling and pervasive behaviours in academia.

Thus, he was inspired to turn it into a piece of art.

Purely Academia has since been performed in the UK, USA and Australia, with UQ to host a reading for a second time on 24 July.

“Despite having no expertise in playwrighting or drama before, I found it a good medium to express myself and create public discussion,” Professor Abramson said.

“The characters do not reflect specific people or organisations, nor does the play propose to have the answers to the questions it poses.

“I’ve seen most things during my years in academia, and I draw on these situations in a generalised way.

“I like to think there’s some comedy and a few laughs in there, but I’ll leave that for the audience to judge.

Roxworthy said she was particularly interested with how modern academia had the potential to dehumanise participants, incentivise cut-throat competition, and discourage collaboration.

She said “theatrical interventions” such as Purely Academic hoped to provide a wake-up call to the scholarly community.

“For someone coming from a computing background, I was surprised by the quality of David’s play, but not surprised by his impulse to write it,” she said.

“There seems a fairly widespread impulse among scientists to dramatise their scholarly community.

“Academic competition erodes empathy, whereas theatre is inherently collaborative and relies on creative participation, so there is a sense of hope of reversing the trend.

“We have already seen a global movement to employ actors and acting techniques in medical schools to reverse the documented trend of students’ eroded ability to empathise  with patients.

“I think we will see this pattern spread throughout academia, particularly STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) disciplines where humanistic training has been compromised.”

The 24 July performance of Purely Academic is set to coincide with a program of events at UQ focused on research integrity.

Renowned American research ethics expert Professor Michael Kalichman will deliver a public lecture – Rigor and reproducibility: Why can’t we do it better? – on Tuesday 23 July.

Co-founder and director of the Centre for Ethics in Science and Technology, Professor Kalichman has taught research ethics around the world for more than 25 years.