In an op-ed for Times Higher Ed, Matthew Flinders (University of Sheffield) argues that postsecondary environments should create spaces for failure to foster top research. Flinders contends that in the current “publish or perish” culture, academics are discouraged from taking bigger leaps in their research and instead opt to publish safe, conventional, and less controversial work: “The higher you pitch your intellectual ambitions, the higher your chance of falling on your face.” The author maintains that new structures are needed in the postsecondary system–and especially within the arts and humanities–that allow researchers to take “bigger leaps,” including by allowing them to fail.
Times Higher Ed (Acct. Req.)
