Do we really need more knowledge? Rethinking academia’s quest in the age of polycrisis

Universities and research centers have long been built around the noble pursuit of generating new knowledge. New theories, new data, new insights are the engines that have driven scientific progress for centuries. But in an era defined by climate change, social fragmentation, technological disruption, and geopolitical instability, there is a question worth asking: Do we actually need more knowledge or should we start using more the knowledge we already have?

This question is not meant as a critique of academia. On the contrary, it emerges from a place of deep respect for the enormous intellectual effort that scholars invest in understanding the world. Yet the scale of today’s crises invites us to pause and reflect on whether the academic system’s central metric of producing ever more knowledge is still aligned with the problems we are trying to solve.

Three observations suggest that the challenge may not be in researching new knowledge, but in using the knowledge we already have.

Knowing is not the same as doing

One of the most widely discussed phenomena in sustainability research is the value–action gap: the persistent disconnect between what people know and what they actually do. Studies across environmental psychology and behavioral science have repeatedly shown that awareness of environmental problems does not automatically translate into sustainable behavior. People may understand the consequences of climate change, biodiversity loss, or overconsumption and still continue practices that contribute to them.

The reasons are complex: habits, infrastructure, social norms, economic incentives, and psychological barriers all play a role. But the implication is clear. If knowledge alone were sufficient, many of our most pressing problems would already be solved. Interestingly, the value–action gap is not limited to everyday environmental behavior; it can also manifest within academia itself. Researchers may generate valuable insights about sustainability, social transformation, or behavioral change, yet institutional incentives, such as publication pressure, disciplinary boundaries, and career structures, often make it difficult to transfer that knowledge into real-world practice. In other words, the bottleneck is often not knowledge creation, but knowledge implementation.

Access to knowledge is unequal

A second challenge concerns access. Much academic research remains locked behind paywalls or distributed through institutional systems that are inaccessible to many practitioners, policymakers, and citizens who could benefit from it. Studies have shown that subscription-based publishing models significantly limit the global accessibility of scientific knowledge, particularly in lower-income regions and outside university environments.

This means that even when knowledge exists, the educators, entrepreneurs, community organizers, local governments who might use it may simply never encounter it. The fragmentation of the internet reinforces this divide. Algorithms, specialized platforms, and institutional silos often prevent insights from circulating beyond narrow academic networks. As a result, knowledge can exist without truly becoming shared knowledge.

When knowledge is recreated under different names

A third issue is fragmentation across disciplines. Academic specialization has produced extraordinary depth of understanding, but it has also created communication barriers. Similar ideas often emerge independently across fields—psychology, sociology, urban planning, organizational studies, economics—each using its own vocabulary and conceptual frameworks.

The result can be a strange form of intellectual déjà vu: the same insights rediscovered, reframed, and renamed across different disciplines. During the “How do we say future?” Workshop I attended in Istanbul between February, 2-4 architect and thinker Behiç Ak captured this dynamic succinctly when reflecting on design and progress: “We often believe we are designing the future, while in reality we are just repeating the same patterns under new names.”

In academia, the same could sometimes be said about knowledge production itself. Concepts such as resilience, systems thinking, adaptive governance, social learning, and behavioral change often overlap in practice, yet appear as distinct conversations because of disciplinary boundaries. Instead of building cumulatively on shared insights, researchers may unknowingly reproduce similar ideas in parallel intellectual ecosystems.

From knowledge production to knowledge integration

Taken together, these observations invite to an important shift in emphasis. Rather than focusing primarily on producing ever more knowledge, academia might increasingly focus on integrating, translating, and applying the knowledge that already exists.

This would mean strengthening connections between disciplines, improving access to research, and building stronger bridges between scholars and practitioners. In sustainability science, such approaches are often described as transdisciplinary research, with collaborations that integrate academic knowledge with real-world practice and lived experience. These approaches acknowledge that solving complex societal challenges requires not only new insights, but also new forms of cooperation between different knowledge systems. Moving forward, transdisciplinary research could go one step further by prioritizing not only the co-production of knowledge but also its implementation in real-world contexts, ensuring that research partnerships lead to concrete societal transformations rather than remaining primarily conceptual exercises. In this sense, researchers, practitioners, and communities become co-implementers of solutions, not just co-authors of knowledge.

From knowledge to action

Ultimately, the question is not whether knowledge matters. It clearly does. The challenge is ensuring that knowledge does not remain confined to journals, conferences, and disciplinary conversations while the problems it seeks to address continue to escalate. Perhaps the future of academia will not be defined by producing more knowledge, but by ensuring that the knowledge we already have can actually help societies navigate the complex challenges ahead. Because in the end, the question may not be how much we know (or not), but what we choose to do with what we (already) know.