Academic Slow Food Manifesto

More more more!
This constant pressure to write more.
More of what?
Slogans, catch phrases?
Analysis for tid-bit quotations?
The same-old, same-old?
They want to stuff our brain
with indicators,
guidelines,
readily-chewed soundbites,
impact and
expected outcomes.
That is not stuff of real scholarship!
That is the stuff of auditing,
of successful annual reporting;
Signs of yielding to extra-academic pressures.
We reclaim the space
for the real pursuit
of unknown horizons,
Of reflection, philosophising
and mind-wandering
We want words, imagination, poetry!
Things impossible to report,
but only thus with real meaning.
But, like slow food,
REAL research takes time
to mature.
It needs tender love and caring;
A space to freely grow.
Less but more
of something
immeasurable
and only thus of true importance.