What happens when trend-driven research culture replaces real intellectual curiosity? When scholars chase topics not out of passion, but because they’re fundable or fashionable? Today's academic system rewards conformity over courage — shaped by a quiet, systemic science funding bias that determines not just what gets researched, but how.
Add to that the relentless academic publishing pressure, and science begins to shift. No longer is it driven by questions worth asking, but by metrics worth meeting. The result? A slow erosion of intellectual independence in science, as researchers adapt to survive in a system optimized for visibility and funding — not necessarily for truth.
It’s not that these topics don’t matter. But their dominance reflects something deeper. A shift. Research today is no longer driven by questions — but by what can be said. By what fits the narrative. And this, quietly but profoundly, is changing the very nature of science.
Where once curiosity was the engine of discovery, now it’s relevance. Strategic alignment. Institutional timeliness. Researchers often find themselves asking not the questions that trouble them — but the ones that work. The ones that fit into predefined frameworks, that are more likely to be approved, cited, or financed.
In this climate, trends begin to function like filters. They define what counts as “forward-thinking” or “innovative.” To study contemplative learning, or the subtle decline of subjectivity in educational systems, is to risk being seen as outdated. But to combine “AI” with “learning environments”? Instant credibility. And so, we follow.
But following, in science, is fatal. It flattens intellectual life. It transforms research into reproduction. It creates the illusion of dynamism — while secretly closing the space for original thought.
This shift is reinforced by how we publish. Today, publication is currency. It defines careers. And so, it shapes behavior. Papers get shorter, faster, cleaner. Results become polished rather than probing. Risk is avoided — because risk slows down output. Uncertainty doesn’t publish well.
And those who think, but don’t immediately produce, are quietly pushed out.
We still call this “science.” But its questions no longer focus an approach to truth — just more an adjustment to content.
Behind it all stand several factors. One is the logic of institutional funding. What gets funded gets done. And funding, increasingly, is about planning, predictability, and quantifiable outcomes. Projects must be efficient, assessable, reportable. Even if the object of study is deeply ambiguous.
Of course, methods and theories play their part, too. They help us structure the unknown. But too often, they become scripts. Instead of guiding research, they start to define it — before the question has even taken shape. What should be a means of insight becomes a template for acceptability.
And so, from every side — funding, publication, theory, trends — the space for genuine inquiry narrows. We no longer ask because we must. We ask because we may.
But real research, the kind that moves knowledge forward, doesn’t begin with permission. It begins with perplexity. With doubt. With silence. Sometimes even with ignorance.
The political theorist Hannah Arendt once wrote:“Thought is born of the experience of breakdown.”
In science, that breakdown isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s the quiet moment when a method no longer fits.
When a question doesn’t yield answers.Or when the answers come too quickly — and feel too smooth.
Before we understand, we must be willing to "not know".
And we must be free to ask.
Today, that freedom is at risk.
Not by force.
But by the quiet gravity of systems that reward conformity more than courage.
And maybe that’s where we need to begin again:
Not with new answers — but with better questions.
References
1) Key Studies on Publish-or‑Perish Effects and Bias Open Access & Industry Funding Impacts
Fanelli, D. (2010). Do Pressures to Publish Increase Scientists’ Bias? PLOS One. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2858206
van Dalen, H. P., Henkens, K., & Schippers, J. (2021). Publish or perish: how the pressure to publish affects the lives of scientists“,
erschienen in Scientometrics (2021), Vol. 126
2) Articles & Reports on Academic Publishing and Funding Pressures & Impacts
Abizadeh, A. (2024, July 16). Academic journals are a lucrative scam that must be brought into the public domain. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jul/16/academic-journal-publishers-universities-price-subscriptions
Frank, J. (2023). Open access publishing – noble intention, flawed reality. Social Science & Medicine. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795362200898X
The Guardian. (2025, July 13). Quality of scientific papers questioned as academics ‘overwhelmed’ by the millions published. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/jul/13/quality-of-scientific-papers-questioned-as-academics-overwhelmed-by-the-millions-published
Sutter, P. M. (2022, June 16). Why Won’t Academia Let Go of ‘Publish or Perish’? Undark. https://undark.org/2022/06/16/why-wont-academia-let-go-of-publish-or-perish
Financial Times. (2024, May 27). How academic publishers profit from the publish‑or‑perish culture. https://www.ft.com/content/575f72a8-4eb2-4538-87a8-7652d67d499e
3) Academic and Philosophical Foundations
Arendt, H. (1968). The Human Condition (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press.
Binswanger, M. (2013). Excellence by Nonsense: The Competition for Publications in Modern Science. In M. Binswanger, Opening Science (pp. 49–72). Springer. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-00026-8_3
Feyerabend, P. (1975). Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge. New Left Books.
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977 (C. Gordon, Ed.). Pantheon.
Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press.
Latour, B., & Woolgar, S. (1986). Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts (2nd ed.). Princeton University Press.
Nosek, B. A., Spies, J. R., & Motyl, M. (2012). Scientific Utopia II: Restructuring Incentives and Practices to Promote Truth over Publishability. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/1205.4251
Nowotny, H., Scott, P., & Gibbons, M. (2001). Re-Thinking Science: Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty. Polity Press.
This piece draws heavily from a dialogue I once had with HBS Puar, whose ideas remain a quiet force behind much of what is written here.
Authored by Rebekka Brandt.