04341nas a2200865   4500000000100000000000100001008004100002260001500043653001200058653002100070653001400091653002500105100002400130700001900154700001600173700002500189700002000214700002200234700002200256700002200278700001800300700003000318700001700348700002700365700002500392700001900417700002100436700002800457700002000485700002100505700002100526700002100547700001600568700001900584700001800603700002600621700001900647700001600666700002400682700001900706700002100725700001900746700001700765700001800782700002800800700002300828700003900851700001900890700001700909700002000926700001900946700002000965700001800985700001401003700002101017700002401038700001901062700002501081700002501106700002801131700002301159700001401182700002201196700001201218700002601230700002101256700002001277700002201297700001601319245011201335856005501447300000901502520195001511022001403461       2026                            d  c2026-09-0310aCareers10aDeveloping world10aEducation10aScientific community1 aPhillip J. Haubrock1 aAntonín Kouba1 aIsmael Soto1 aNeil Angelo S. Abreo1 aLorenzo Vilizzi1 aDagmara Błońska1 aAli Serhan Tarkan1 aVanessa De Santis1 aRonaldo Sousa1 aAntónio Barbosa Nogueira1 aSenne Heeren1 aJoana Garrido Nogueira1 aCarlos Cano-Barbacil1 aBruno Cremella1 aDiederik Strubbe1 aJanine Pereira da Silva1 aRiccardo Poloni1 aPablo Deschepper1 aEli S. J. Thoré1 aBenjamin Misteli1 aJingrui Sun1 aMartina Panisi1 aDavid Dudgeon1 aValentini Stamatiadou1 aShams M. Galib1 aChelly Maes1 aNompumelelo C. Baso1 aWouter Beukema1 aBarbora Števove1 aEva Záhorská1 aIrmak Kurtul1 aDavinder Kaur1 aAugusto Frederico Huber1 aDariusz Halabowski1 aJaneide de Assis Guilherme Padilha1 aParide Balzani1 aCüneyt Kaya1 aEsra Bayçelebi1 aMichele Mugnai1 aDanish A. Ahmed1 aGülşah Saç1 aSadi Aksu1 aBurak Malik Kaya1 aMulkibar Ciftcioglu1 aXiaoming Jiang1 aMarta Rodríguez-Rey1 aIrene Martín-Forés1 aSuzana Gonçalves Leles1 aLucian Pârvulescu1 aJan Pergl1 aFederica Rossetto1 aHui Wei1 aNatalia I. Kirichenko1 aElizabeta Briski1 aLuca Gallitelli1 aJ. Robert Britton1 aTeun Everts00aHow contemporary academic structures constrain scientific creativity and hold back early-career researchers  uhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-026-02575-5  a1-113 aWe 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.  a2397-3374