Nature Human Behaviour: academia selects against the creativity science needs most
plopesresearch · x · 2026-09-07
A Perspective in Nature Human Behaviour argues contemporary academic structures systematically select against what science needs most: creativity, intellectual risk-taking and bold ideas.
- Precarity, hypercompetitive funding, peer review, publication costs and metric-driven evaluation make "playing it safe" the rational career choice for early-career researchers
- Lead author Phillip Haubrock says the argument draws on years of first-hand early-career struggle
- The authors hope the paper sparks debate on whether the system enables the science academia claims to value
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