@article{bibcite_9116,
  keywords = {Careers, Developing world, Education, Scientific community},
  author = {Phillip J. Haubrock and Anton{\'\i}n Kouba and Ismael Soto and Neil Angelo S. Abreo and Lorenzo Vilizzi and Dagmara B{\l}o{\'n}ska and Ali Serhan Tarkan and Vanessa De Santis and Ronaldo Sousa and Ant{\'o}nio Barbosa Nogueira and Senne Heeren and Joana Garrido Nogueira and Carlos Cano-Barbacil and Bruno Cremella and Diederik Strubbe and Janine Pereira da Silva and Riccardo Poloni and Pablo Deschepper and Eli S. J. Thor{\'e} and Benjamin Misteli and Jingrui Sun and Martina Panisi and David Dudgeon and Valentini Stamatiadou and Shams M. Galib and Chelly Maes and Nompumelelo C. Baso and Wouter Beukema and Barbora {\v S}tevove and Eva Z{\'a}horsk{\'a} and Irmak Kurtul and Davinder Kaur and Augusto Frederico Huber and Dariusz Halabowski and Janeide de Assis Guilherme Padilha and Paride Balzani and C{\"u}neyt Kaya and Esra Bay{\c c}elebi and Michele Mugnai and Danish A. Ahmed and G{\"u}l{\c s}ah Sa{\c c} and Sadi Aksu and Burak Malik Kaya and Mulkibar Ciftcioglu and Xiaoming Jiang and Marta Rodr{\'\i}guez-Rey and Irene Mart{\'\i}n-For{\'e}s and Suzana Gon{\c c}alves Leles and Lucian P{\^a}rvulescu and Jan Pergl and Federica Rossetto and Hui Wei and Natalia I. Kirichenko and Elizabeta Briski and Luca Gallitelli and J. Robert Britton and Teun Everts},
  title = {How contemporary academic structures constrain scientific creativity and hold back early-career researchers},
  abstract = {We argue that contemporary scientific systems progressively constrain high-risk and conceptually innovative research while being increasingly structured around short funding cycles, productivity-based evaluation criteria and risk-averse frameworks that favour predictable and non-transformative research outputs. Drawing on recent empirical literature, we show how such systems can place disproportionate pressure on early-career researchers by incentivizing safe, tractable and easily evaluated outputs. Structural academic mechanisms such as peer review and funding, escalating publication costs and institutional inequalities interact with precarious employment and hierarchical dependencies. In this environment, we contend that strategic conformity becomes a rational career path. This risks suppressing creativity and critical thinking precisely at the stage when scientific independence could otherwise emerge. Consequently, the probability of substantive contributions by early-career researchers is declining, while talent may increasingly abandon academia or cluster within a limited number of well-resourced institutions and national systems. By adopting a systems-level perspective, we argue that scientific creativity is not merely an individual trait but an emerging property of a supportive academic landscape and that maintaining or restoring it may require substantial structural reforms. These include promoting stable research pathways, decentralized decision-making and evaluation frameworks that better recognize collaboration, originality, persistence and nonlinear career trajectories. Without systemic change, we risk stifling the potential of early-career researchers to go beyond the confines of existing methods and approaches and deliver transformative advances. This would limit their capacity to meaningfully change our understanding of the world or benefit society, with impacts that fall short of their potential.},
  year = {2026},
  journal = {Nature Human Behaviour},
  pages = {1-11},
  month = {2026-09-03},
  issn = {2397-3374},
  url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-026-02575-5},
  doi = {10.1038/s41562-026-02575-5},
  language = {en},
}