Innovation Cargo‑Cult in Academia

Universities and funders increasingly ritualize 'innovation'—rewarding proposals and metrics that look like invention—while stripping out the real-world feedback loops (markets, deployments, battlefield proofs) that separate useful implementation from junk ideas. The result is institutionalized production of novelty that is untested, poorly implemented, and rent‑seeking rather than societally productive. — If true, this shifts reform attention from individual grants or 'more money' to redesigning incentives, assessment, and reality‑testing mechanisms inside higher education and public research funding.