Insights into academia: can we make it more sustainable??

Today I want to take a look close to home.

As a scientist, and as a marine ecologist I think I have chosen a career path that is quite ‘sustainable’ - doing things for the greater good.
Sometimes I still think that one day I am going to change the world.....


but really, is science all for the greater goods? And could we do it better?

I have been thinking a lot about this lately , there is so much repeating , everyone so close and attached to their little experiment (or model) , afraid to let go and yet simultaneously trying to find the bigger picture in order to get their science published in some high impact journal..
I assume the scientists amongst my readers are probably nodding , while I might have lost some of you already..

High impact journals? Science published ? Experiments ? Models? (No, not talking about the likes of Naomi Campbell here, but more like those scary climate predictions...).
To summarise quickly for the non-academic out there in order to make it into a science career and advance one has to prove him/herself by conducting experiments, (or make models) and write them up into manuscripts which then get sent to journals (mostly discipline specific) where they undergo a peer review before being published. Journals are ranked according to their impact, which is given by their readership and how often they are cited. This results in each scientist also having a number (a rank, an index) which depends on the number of papers published, the impact of the journals and the number of times they were cited (people please correct me if I am wrong..) .
And to me this contributes to make sfience less sustainable than it should be.
Why!?

Because:

1. everyone is concentrated into making so called ‘high impact’ research, that often we forget what is really important. Sometimes we try to focus into finding results which are of world wide importance whereas maybe some important things are location specific - and would still be important to find out!
   
2. At the same time Everyone is so focused on their little experiment and are so preciouswith their findings thatninstead of collaborating into finding something bigger multiple people are working on very similar topics and very similar systems in a very small and limited way.
   
3. Funding is often country specific or at least location specific
   
4. Conferences are too topic specific and are of a format made to impress others with your findings rather than find collaborations and see long lost firends in a big party. Do we need to pass it as work and science ?
   
5. ‘Mobility’ is still somewhat limited between countries with same/similar social status.

So what do I suggest?

Well.. here is my list
Please tell me if I am wrong, where I am wrong and if you have other ideas

1. Start valuing scientific quality with objective markers. Scientific integrity and scientific methodology should be rewarded more highly than the ability of story telling. Let’s leave the story telling for the newspapers and magazines, and keep the science scientific
   
2. Make an international nonprofit science money fund. That way there are no vested interest. Best science proposal get the money.
   
3. Value scientific collaborations for topics that need to be investigated with a cross boarder approach, yet similarly don’t forget to fund this ever important location specific approaches. Maybe a place is experiencing more draughtband in turns some species are disappearing? Importan5 to know. Is it affecting the local economy? In my opinion this is also something important to know, although not on a global scale...
   
4. all of this can only come if institutions go back to be public and move away from business models. Universities and research centres alike should have an open policy
   
5. An ultimately I would suggest that values of scientific integrity should be taught, and teaching future generation of scientists should come from passion and not as a duty.this means that institutions should lessen the burden on professors of paperwork and administrative tasks, and leave them with more time to inspire