Stefan Grimm (1963 – 2014). A memorial to a victim of managerialism

Jump to follow-up Today, 25 September, is the first anniversary of the needless death of Stefan Grimm. This post is intended as a memorial. He should be remembered, in the hope that some good can come from his death. On 1 December 2014, I published the last email from Stefan Grimm, under the title “Publish and perish at Imperial College London: the death of Stefan Grimm“. Since then it’s been viewed 196,000 times. The day after it was posted, the server failed under the load. Since than, I posted two follow-up pieces. On December 23, 2014 “Some experiences of life at Imperial College London. An external inquiry is needed after the death of Stefan Grimm“. Of course there was no external inquiry. And on April 9, 2015, after the coroner’s report, and after Imperial’s internal inquiry, "The death of Stefan Grimm was “needless”. And Imperial has done nothing to prevent it happening again". The tragedy featured in the introduction of the HEFCE report on the use of metrics. “The tragic case of Stefan Grimm, whose suicide in September 2014 led Imperial College to launch a review of its use of performance metrics, is a jolting reminder that what’s at stake in these debates is more than just the design of effective management systems.” “Metrics hold real power: they are constitutive of values, identities and livelihoods ” I had made no attempt to contact Grimm’s family...
Source: DC's goodscience - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Academia business corporate corruption Imperial metrics Alice Gast bibliometrics Gavin Screaton Imperial College managerialism Martin Wilkins Stefan Grimm Universities Source Type: blogs