Albert Einstein famously said, "If we knew what we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"

Who should determine the topics of our academic research and according to which standards should they be assessed? If recent developments in the United Kingdom play out as now suggested, the possibilities for autonomous decision-making about what we research may have just gotten a little smaller.

Though the synonyms for "inquiry" are many -- study, investigation, questioning, pursuit, scrutiny, and exploration are among those that come to mind -- nowhere does "applicability" raise its head. Six weeks ago, 18,000 British university professors - including six Noble prize winners - signed a petition protesting plans in Britain for its Higher Education Funding Councils to offer financial incentives for research that has "demonstrable benefits" to the economy, society, or culture.

Proposed in September for action in the research assessment period up to 2013, code words are flying on both sides of the argument. Those who support the plan argue for research that will make a difference on multiple levels, not just economic ones. They push for impact indicators, relevancy, and usefulness. Those who oppose the plan argue for imagination and curiosity-driven research, and say the plan will support business-friendly, possibly unoriginal research proposals and value-for-money over the serendipity of letting the data reveal their own shapes in open-ended exploration. Offering a list of ideas that never would have passed this standard for funding - x-rays, lasers, liquid crystal displays, and Google's search algorithm - they remind us that while funding has always been part of the academic landscape, it has remained exactly that. For "outcomes" relevant to funding exercises address only part of the academy: They reflect scientific modes of engagement first and foremost, social scientific modes to a lesser extent, and humanistic modes almost not at all.

The crimp in the British case is that the proposed funding is relevant to the longstanding Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) - now termed Research Excellence Framework (REF) - which every 5 years tackles British universities, assesses their output and rewards them accordingly for the upkeep (or not) of their existing programs. Without this research funding, the research active British universities would go under. The new guidelines propose that 25% of the evaluation of their research draw from an assessment of impact.

The differences that have long underpinned inductive and deductive modes of inquiry shout for a place at the table. For those of us in communication, where the blended nature of different modes of inquiry has been our bread and butter, we should be asking clear questions about the cost analysis of such an endeavor. What would this do to interdisciplinarity, and what effect would it have on its hard-fought gains in creating new disciplines - like communication - that pride themselves on gathering together across different modes of inquiry, diverse epistemological perspectives, and multiple modes of methodological engagement? Would an exercise like this not undo the integrated existence for which we've fought long and hard?

One of the British Nobel prize winners, Sir Tim Hunt, remarked when signing the petition against the funding changes that "the whole idea of research is to find out things that you didn't know before." In communication, where the continually evolving landscapes of cultural, social, political, economic, and technological change keep pushing us to think anew about what we thought we knew yesterday, going where we don't know and keeping the channels safe for getting there might be our surest bet for continuity. Not only would it support the different kinds of intellectual inquiry that we do, but it would ensure the as-yet-undiscovered multiple projects that will surely come in their stead.

For ICA, this has clear relevance. As we try to better understand the multiple local environments in which our members negotiate their work environments, it is imperative that we stay abreast of the trends and patterns which make the academy a friendlier place in some locations and a more tenuous one in others. Research councils do not only reside in the United Kingdom. Equally important, our reliance on funding-whether it comes from governments or corporations - promises to loom as large in our future as it does today. We need to keep thinking about how to best navigate its demands while keeping our integrity as intellectuals.