&gt; I guess its just the difficulty of projects coming from a university&#x2F;science&#x2F;research basis where these things arent valued because they are hard to quantify.<p>IMHO rather because in research projects at universities there is no position (in the sense that one can spend money on it) for people who aren&#x27;t either researcher or administration. UX people surely have their importance but they neither bring research results nor they are a &quot;necessary evil&quot; (adminstration - which is no contradiction that good adminstration personal can be really helpful).