Tales of excellence in an accelerated culture

Research and innovation have been attributed a growing role in maintaining global competitiveness and socio-economic progress; in particular, major research breakthroughs are seen as important catalysts for innovation and growth. This has heightened focus on monitoring scientific excellence and how it can be fostered (Sørensen et al, 2015; Young, 2015b). As a result, the conditions under which academic researchers operate have experienced rapid change. Dependence on competitive funding has increased considerably, combined with greater concentration into larger grants (Bloch and Sørensen, 2015). Alongside this, the distribution of institutional block funding is increasingly attached to research performance, often based on quantitative measures (Hicks, 2011). This increased focus on monitoring research performance combined with substantial increases in data quality and availability has led to a proliferation of measures of researcher performance that can be calculated and updated on a continual basis (Burrows, 2012). At the same time, the number of PhDs has increased dramatically, resulting in intense competition for both temporary and tenured positions (Fochler et al, 2015). Arguments have been made that these factors can have important effects on researcher behavior, and on how excellent or breakthrough research is produced (Hammarfelt and de Rijcke, 2014; Hicks et al, 2015; Münch, 2014). More specifically, it is argued that these new ‘accelerated’ conditions lead researchers to adopt short-term horizons for their research as they need to be able demonstrate results on a regular basis. At the same time, these pressures can be seen as promoting incremental change and deterring risk-taking behavior by increasing the consequences of failure in the short term (Young, 2015a). These conditions may also promote a greater pre-determination of research goals, leaving little room for free, creative thinking and the pursuit of unplanned or unexpected results. While these concerns seem well-founded and can find support from a variety of directions, it is not fully clear how these new conditions for research influence breakthrough research (Heinze et al, 2009; Laudel and Gläser, 2014). In what ways is the actual pursuit of scientific excellence adversely affected? Or is it more of a question of adaptation to the new reality of research? Is breakthrough research generally unaffected by these changed conditions? The objective of this paper is to examine how breakthrough research accomplishments are created under these accelerated conditions. Through interviews with researchers behind breakthrough results, we will seek to characterize research processes and how the breakthroughs came about. The interviews will in particular focus on potential influences of changed conditions on risk taking, research ambitions and time horizons, and the role of serendipity and the pursuit of unexpected results. In order to help identify breakthrough research results, we will draw on work by Schneider and Costas (2015), who identify breakthrough research articles based on citation data. The sample will consist of 25 corresponding authors of ‘breakthrough’ journal articles worldwide within selected disciplines in 2011. The articles will also be validated manually prior to conducting the interviews.