Historians are not known for their skills at augury; but the parlous state of science in the 2020s demands that we attempt to situate numerous controversies over Big Data, the death of journals, flaws of research integrity, distrust of scientists, open science and the transformation of universities into a larger more encompassing framework. In his talk, Philip Miroski argues that although we have been living through an era of the commercialization of science since the 1980s, something has dramatically intensified over the last decade, resulting in distinctly novel phenomena. Whereas commercialization used to mean the subjection of research outputs to market considerations, a new development seeks to monetize nearly all aspects of the research process.

Philip Mirowski, the Carl E. Koch Professor of Economics, is Professor of Economics and Policy Studies and the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Notre Dame. In addition to holding the Koch Professorship, he is a fellow and the former Acting Director of Notre Dame’s John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values.