The New Institute Closes Its Doors

[rufuspollock]

Excerpt from original longer post at The New Institute Closes its Doors

Just came across this fascinating closing statement announcing that the the New Institute closed its doors in March 2026 by its funder and founder Erck Rickmers.1 Rickmers is part of a 150 year old Hamburg shipping dynasty and a SDP politician. The institute was an experimental “Institute of Advanced Study” dedicated to addressing the most important challenges of our times.

I came across New Institute around 2020 and was always intrigued by approach (seemed a bit like Beggruen but more radical) and very impressed by their elegant website (just look at that logo).

The statement is impressive in its forthrightness, as are the other similar reflections e.g. by the MD.

Overall I’m sceptical of (billionaire) philanthrophy, however admirable the aims (though, of course, if you handed me a billion dollars I’d imagine I could do better ). In this case, I also feel ten years is not enough to really know the impact. Whatever the case, the assessment is valuable and fascinating.

Some examples of the blunt assessment

Return on resources did not make sense

the resources provided and the societal return did not stand in a reasonable proportion to one another, and the goals we had set for ourselves were only partially achieved. [what goals were achieved?]

How much resource was provided. I’m guessing €20m plus easily. There’s the centres funding, fellowships, a dedicated space in Hamburg renovated by renowned architects plus a beautiful website.

Blunt assessment of academic collaboration

Collaborating with scholars from the humanities and social sciences was sobering at times. For many, considerations of personal career advancement seem to outweigh commitment to a shared purpose.

Given current structure of academia I’m not surprised (though perhaps was always so given the cuthroat nature of the academy). More evidence for Academia is the Catholic Church of Modernity and resembles the Church just before the Reformation.

Ideology and wishful thinking stood in the way of pragmatic approaches

Interdisciplinary collaboration and teamwork proved difficult to organize, and ideology or wishful thinking occasionally stood in the way of pragmatic, reality-based approaches.

This is not a surprise especially if you mainly engage philosophy academics. (not that i don’t have a lot of time for philosophy academics)

Some tough feedback

Perhaps this helps explain why disciplines whose perspectives are so urgently needed by society often attract less public attention than one might wish.

[RobertBunge]

@rufuspollock

More evidence for Academia is the Catholic Church of Modernity and resembles the Church just before the Reformation.

At the macro level, early today I pointed Gemini at solving the metacrisis (worth a shot!) and it came up with this idea as part of its diagnosis for the breakdown of world order:

" Pace-Layering Mismatch & Hegemonic Entropy"

At the micro level, earlier today I also posted the statement below in another channel to some of my former students who founded a small non-profit and are looking for outsourcing contracts from the college:

“The problem space is all standard college processes (hiring, scheduling, curriculum development, accreditation) are too slow …”

I was not aware of the idea of “pace-layering mismatch” when I wrote that, but it does kind of sound like pace-layering mismatch. Now, extend that from my college to academia in general. Anything institutional - academia included - is going to get pace-layer mismatched with chaotic reality unfolding in a bevy of runaway exponential feedback loops. That’s why I proposed to my former students that they become an “agility layer” for the college and do a bunch of R&D outsourcing work for the college at a pace the college itself could never touch. It sounds like the Institute that folded acted too much like existing institutions. By contrast, I’m couching my former students to stay in orbit around the institution (and use the institution as the wide end of a financial funnel), but to keep overhead low and focus on value add at the low-resource, high leverage end of the funnel. If you know of any billionaires desiring a consultation on how “high leverage” works, feel free to point them in our general direction!

[rufuspollock]

I was not aware of the idea of “pace-layering mismatch” when I wrote that, but it does kind of sound like pace-layering mismatch. Now, extend that from my college to academia in general. Anything institutional - academia included - is going to get pace-layer mismatched with chaotic reality unfolding in a bevy of runaway exponential feedback loops.

Yes … and going faster is probably not what we want. Yes, there is a pace-layering mis-match but i think the only feasible successful root is to slow down. Now, of course, slowing down is a collective action problem … and it could be addressed.

That is an implicit agreement with that part of a problem is a pace mismatch …

Finally, though the reason academia is dying is more because it was tied to the epistemological and political power of modernity. As yes, we don’t have a stable epistemological alternative (that’s what we are working out on this kind of forum ) and there’s no real alternative resource/power source yet either (though perhaps some are emerging).

[RobertBunge]

@rufuspollock

i think the only feasible successful root is to slow down.

Depends entirely what is slowing down. To keep instruction relevant for current job seekers, the tempo is dictated by the job market, not by ancient wisdom. Or better yet, one might cultivate ancient wisdom at the core, which allows for fluid adaptability in situations. (Consider various Japanese fighting styles for an image what that looks like).