The last century has been a remarkable period of scientific discovery. And one of the primary drivers of it? Universities like Penn State, according to Professor of Sociology, Education and Demography David P. Baker.
That’s the main takeaway of “Global Mega-Science: Universities, Research Collaborations, and Knowledge Production,” the new book co-written by Baker and Justin J.W. Powell, professor of sociology of education at the University of Luxembourg.
In the book, published by Stanford University Press, Baker and Powell chart the spread of the global university system over the past 120 years and how it precipitated the growth of what they called “scientific knowledge production.”
Compiling historical accounts, interviews and reams of data, the authors argued that the age of global mega-science came out of the deeply intertwined relationship between higher education and scientific research, and the resulting collaborative networks established by professors around the world. These relationships “are key for scholars and citizens to understand the past, future and sustainability of science,” said Baker, who is also an SSRI faculty affiliate and PRI associate.
“It’s a very accessible, historical account of how we ended up with so much scientific knowledge,” Baker said. “We summarize trends among several million records of science publications over the 20th century, uncovering the who, what, when and where of the flow of discovery. We tell the tale of this rising global flow of research papers — how we went from a world in 1900 that was producing 10,000 papers total to now, when a major research university like Penn State produces that many in just one year.”
The modern university model can be traced to late 19th century Germany and central Europe. It eventually spread to the United States, which “turbocharged” the concept and exported it to Asia and ultimately the rest of the world, Baker said. Today, the vast majority of scientific research continues to be conducted at universities.
Baker and Powell used numerous specific examples from universities worldwide to illustrate their points, including how Penn State rose above its roots as an agricultural college for farmers to become one of the standard-bearers for the modern research-driven land-grant university thanks to the efforts of its first president, Evan Pugh.
“In Pugh,” the authors wrote, “the bridge between the Euro-German university-science model and the American version and its culture is readily evident.”
Later in the book, Baker and Powell detailed Penn State Professor of Physics Doug Cowen’s highly collaborative work with more than 300 researchers from around the world at Antarctica’s IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Collaboration across borders and the sharing of such crucial infrastructure is key to global mega-science, according to the authors.
“The education mission of universities cross-subsidizes its scientific mission and to a degree vice versa,” Baker said. “Everyone talks about outside research funding, which of course is very important, but there’s no way that even the wealthiest nations, including the United States, could have this many government-sponsored scientists. If you add up all the scientists at Penn State and multiply that by 1,500 institutions, our higher education system supports that many scientists outright. Universities assess and hire them, develop and manage their careers, provide them salaries and professional resources. It’s the whole organizational platform that supports the scientists in developing their research from the bottom up.
“The other part central to this mode is the amount of collaboration, which is the key now to quality research — we call it the collaboration dividend,” he continued. “It not only expands resources, but it’s become the way in which top science is done. You can’t reach — and surpass — the cutting edge without it. Fortunately, universities make collaborative research so much easier to do now. Every country, despite whatever political differences they might have, have scientists who collaborate on research. A scientist, particularly university-based, can reach out anywhere in the world and say, ‘Hey, let’s solve this problem together.’”
The book’s publication comes during a particularly busy period for Baker.
In late June, he traveled to Gwangju, South Korea, to attend a conference hosted by the Korea Education Research Association at Chonnam National University. There, he gave the invited key-note address, “Falling Birthrates, Spreading Shadow Education, and Globalizing Science Production: What Do World Trends Mean for the Future of Korean Education?”
Also, he recently finished his stint as the 2023-24 George Sarton Chair and Medalist in the History of Science at Ghent University in Belgium, which recognized his “intellectual leadership of an international team of sociologists conducting a socio-historical project on the causes of growth of global mega-science and the scientization of world culture from 1900 to present.”
Baker’s scholarship on science is part of his broader study of how the worldwide education revolution has influenced the historical rise of the social institutions of postindustrial society, and, more theoretically, on how human society sustains itself. In addition to global education development’s impact on the knowledge society and science productivity, he has closely examined the impact of education on epidemics, trends in population health, the pending population implosion and new patterns of social inequality.
In recent years, he has collaborated with students and colleagues on research projects exploring the effects of education on everything from the increasing cognitive skills of populations to the transformation of occupations to health risk behaviors.
Baker’s other books include “The Schooled Society: The Educational Transformation of Global Culture,” published by Stanford University Press in 2014, which received the American Education Research Association’s Outstanding Book of the Year; and “The Century of Science: The Global Triumph of the Research University,” published by Emerald Publishing in 2017, which received the Association for the Study of Higher Education Award for Significant Research on International Higher Education.