> Haskell is widely acclaimed as the language that represents the functional programming ideals. But it is meant to be an academic language...

The Haskell report lists 5 goals, the first if which is

> It should be suitable for teaching, research, and applications, including building large systems.

Wasn't Haskell formed by a committee of academics originated in an academic conference on functional programming, to try to merge competing functional programming languages into a base line from which to conduct research?