Academy Mission
A Brief History of the Academy
The Science Survival Academy was founded by John Garger, who continues to serve as its President. John recognized early in his career that many researchers struggle with more than just the mechanics of science; they struggle with navigating the hidden terrain of research.
Established in 2016 as a private brand, the Academy initially provided copy editing, proofreading, dissertation coaching, and writing support to scholars across disciplines. As patterns emerged, so did a larger purpose.
In 2020, the Academy evolved into a broader platform, producing books, lectures, videos, and courses that examine the people, practices, and institutions that shape science. A charter was created that outlined the Academy’s purpose and organization. What began as a service has become a mission—to help researchers survive science by helping them think more clearly, write more earnestly, and work more deliberately.
Symbols, Phrases, and Meaning
The seal of the Academy bears four symbols, each representing a tenet that the Academy is sworn to support.
The pillared edifice signifies the institutions within which scientific inquiry is conducted, shaped, and constrained. The open pages stand for the individual studies that emerge from this endeavor—the findings presented to peers in journals and at conferences. The pen nib denotes writing, through which thought becomes record and research becomes discourse. The book, solemn and bound, represents the dissertation, a threshold work that marks the transition from apprentice to independent scholar.
Affixed to the bottom of the seal is the Latin inscription Instituere, Discere, et Crescere—To Teach, To Learn, and To Grow.
These words express the Academy’s foundational principle: surviving science is possible through the collective contributions of the Academy’s members, each of whom becomes teacher, learner, and contributor, united in the shared pursuit of deeper inquiry and more meaningful understanding.
Why Science Survival
Science is more than a method; it is a fragile human enterprise, one shaped by institutions, sustained by people, expressed through writing, and advanced by research. Like all human endeavors, it is vulnerable to distortion, drift, and misuse.
The Science Survival Academy exists to protect and promote the conditions under which science can flourish. It is a scholarly community committed to examining not just what science produces, but how, and by whom, it is produced. Its mission is to support researchers at all stages, especially those who sense that something vital is missing from the way science is conducted, taught, and reported.
What We Study
The Academy is dedicated to several interwoven domains of inquiry, each essential to understanding and sustaining science in its full complexity.
Institutions and the People Who Inhabit Them
How scientific knowledge is shaped by academic structures, incentives, and cultures is a central focus of the Academy’s inquiry. The Academy explores how institutions influence what counts as legitimate science, and who gets to do it.
Research Itself
In pursuit of a deeper understanding of science, the Academy explores the logic, methodology, and meaning behind research practices. It asks what counts as a contribution, what assumptions go unquestioned, and what alternatives are excluded. Science must, therefore, continually examine not just findings, but foundations.
The Rhetoric of Research
Recognizing that writing shapes perception and argument, the Academy treats written discourse as a core scientific practice rather than a peripheral skill. How scientists write affects what they see, what they claim, and how others understand it. We analyze the genres, habits, and hidden assumptions that shape research communication.
Dissertations and Doctoral Formation
Through critical reflection and reform, the Academy seeks to strengthen the dissertation process, the formative stage during which future scientists learn to conduct meaningful research. Beyond its formality lies identity formation, intellectual struggle, and initiation into the unspoken norms of academia. The Academy seeks to demystify and reform how researchers are made.
Our Approach
The Academy is not a traditional academic institution. It is a critical, cross-disciplinary, and reflective community. Its work takes the form of books, lectures, workshops, courses, collaborative inquiry, and intellectual companionship.
The Academy welcomes scientists, scholars, doctoral students, independent thinkers, and anyone seeking deeper insight into the structures that shape the conduction of science. Its direction is shaped not by donors or institutions, but by the collective imaginations of those who care about what science can become.
Join Us
If you believe science deserves more than mechanical replication and careerist ambitions—if you believe it can be a space for courage, clarity, and curiosity—then you already belong here.
Join the Academy and let us know what content you would like to see produced.