We are weakening the institutions that can solve coronavirus

Medical researchers from universities are working against the clock on a vaccine to ensure that the virus does not stay with us for years to come and to avert further swathes of deaths across the globe. While private firms are also playing a significant role in this scientific effort, academics have the benefit of an optimal level of expertise and a greater ability to collaborate and to engage in interdisciplinary methods of work where necessary. They can develop drugs based on need rather than profit, as opposed to scientists employed by pharmaceutical companies.

At the same time, public institutions, particularly those with manufacturing capacity, are theoretically in a better position to share the fruits of their research on drugs and life-saving medical equipment than private bodies which seek to make a personal gain from their discoveries.

Other academics making noteworthy contributions in relation to COVID-19 are economists assisting government with economic forecasting, business scholars studying the effects of the current business interruptions on supply chains and labour in the developing world, and political economists examining why the capitalist economy may not be built to handle pandemics, let alone to respond adequately to people's medical needs under ordinary circumstances. Needless to say, economists employed by private research institutes and financial institutions would likely forgo the latter big-picture analysis.

Additionally, academics in law have been working on identifying the most suitable legal mechanisms to pursue in these challenging times. They are looking at ways to help protect people's health and lives from the virus without the problems of unconstitutionality and heavy-handed law enforcement and without leaving behind vulnerable people. Some are trying to ensure that temporary legal frameworks are not skewed towards the higher end of society as with, for example, the relaxation of corporate and employment laws that we are witnessing in some countries.

In fact, in virtually every university discipline, scholars have focused attention on responding to COVID-19 and major public health events. Education experts are researching equitable remote class delivery, philosophers are examining the ethics of choices around the virus, architects and urban planners are designing virus-safe workspaces and cities, IT and engineering experts are developing more future-proof technologies, and psychologists are helping to reduce the negative effects of isolation and economic recession on mental health, to name just a few research projects.

These research innovations do not just come from professors, but also early career researchers, many of whom have been left in limbo following the decline in income of universities. They come from those who have, for better or for worse, idealised universities as a venue in which to work for the common good and from those expecting safeguards to protect the institution of public tertiary education.

If, contrary to these expectations, we expand and contract the pool of scholars with every expansion and contraction of the economy, or, even worse, pursue a trajectory of the commercialisation of tertiary education and declare an oversupply of education even in relatively prosperous times, we risk minimising the importance of university scholarship. In particular, we risk overlooking fundamental human (as opposed to economic) indicators for research, which include major calamities such as the novel coronavirus.