People act according to incentives, and university professors are no exception. Professors receive tenure and promotion based largely on the number and quality of papers they have published in their area of expertise. The number of papers published is a simple metric, but how should the quality of publishing be judged? Surely the quality of published research should be judged on the extent to which it benefits society. That is to say, quality research provides information that can be used to make people better off than they would have been if the research had not been carried out and published.In fact, I would also argue that this goal, to make people better off than otherwise, should also be the goal of university teaching, or, in fact, teaching at any level.Universities have a dual role

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