This speculative fabulation takes the form of a policy brief written in 2050 to summarize the assessment of the effects of implementing recommendations pertaining to academic expertise of a reform adopted in 2040. The evaluation—'The 2040 Reform Design for a Better Society at Ten'—is fictitious. So is the 'Academic Expertise In Focus' policy brief. This chapter is a speculation about the future of academic expertise. In it, its authors imagine that some currently common ideas about what is wrong with academic expertise—and how to redress these wrongs—have become European research policy. They also speculate about the effects of such policies, how they might be assessed ten years after being adopted, and what further measures this assessment might result in. The discussion draws on a range of contemporary sources about the predicament of academic expertise. It also relies on invented references, figures, and websites that the authors have marked φ to make sure that no one thinks 2040 is already ten years ago. 'Pace' social acceleration, the authors are writing this in May 2023. Their speculation directs attention to some core (all too real and present) issues haunting academic expertise in the hope that this might prompt a critical reflection about the current pathologies of expertise and debates about what could be done about them. Such discussion could make the predicament of academic expertise in 2050 different from the one they recount. The authors hold that if they contribute minimally to making it so, they would have achieved their aim.
