Networking on the Network The concept of an invisible college is useful for several reasons. First of all, it helps to explain some of the institutional tensions that universities face: individual researchers generally identify more strongly with their invisible college than they do with the organization that employs them. After all, it is principally the invisible college that evaluates the researcher's work by writing letters and refereeing articles. Universities are always threatening to be pulled apart by these centrifugal forces. Industrial labs, likewise, often have trouble persuading researchers to focus on the issues that affect customers, because the researcher's long-term career success depends on staying current with research agendas in the invisible college.