A recent Science|Business article made a claim that will feel painfully familiar to many early-career researchers: fixed-term academic contracts discourage radical research.
Honestly, that finding is not surprising.
If you are working on a short-term contract, the incentives shaping your research choices are very clear, even if no one ever states them explicitly.
You want a project you can finish within the contract. You want results you can show at the end of it. You want something reviewers, funders, and hiring committees will quickly understand.
In other words, you want research that is not only innovative, but also doable.
And that is exactly where the tension begins.
Why risky projects and precarity do not mix well
High-risk research does not fit neatly within short-term academic timelines.
Risky projects are more difficult to justify in funding applications with tight deliverables. They are more likely to be flagged by peer reviewers as "too speculative." They rarely come with guarantees about outcomes or publications.
But guarantees are precisely what reviewers want.
When your next contract, visa, or income depends on measurable output, choosing a safer project is not a lack of ambition. It is a rational response to structural insecurity.
At the same time, many researchers are acutely aware of the irony: the projects that feel too risky to pursue right now are often the ones that could make the biggest intellectual contribution, or even transform a career in the long run.
Funders know this, but access remains limited
What is important to note is that funders are not completely unaware of this problem.
The European Research Council, for example, explicitly promotes "high-risk, high-gain" research. Its funding schemes are designed to support ambitious, ground-breaking ideas where outcomes are uncertain.
Similarly, some foundations have experimented with dedicated formats for risky research. The Volkswagen Foundation in Germany, for instance, has offered schemes such as Experiment! or Off the Beaten Track, which were explicitly designed to encourage unconventional and exploratory projects.
At the European level, programs such as Horizon Europe Pathfinder (and earlier FET-style calls) were also created to support radical innovation.
But these opportunities come with important caveats. They are extremely competitive. They are often time-limited or redesigned after a few funding rounds. And they are accessible only to a small group of researchers with the right institutional support, timing, and profile.
For most early-career researchers, especially in the humanities and social sciences, the reality looks different.
Your bold ideas usually still have to fit into generic grant schemes with short timelines, predefined outputs, and limited tolerance for uncertainty.
The real dilemma early-career researchers face
This is where the dilemma becomes personal.
On the one hand, you know that bold, creative, and unconventional projects are often what make research exciting and meaningful. On the other hand, you are working in a system that rewards caution, predictability, and speed, especially early in an academic career.
So if you have postponed a risky idea, scaled it down, or reshaped it into something safer, that does not mean you lack courage or creativity.
It means you are navigating an unstable system strategically.
The question, then, becomes:
How can I stay intellectually creative without putting my career at risk?
Three ways to protect your creativity under precarious conditions
There is no perfect solution to this tension. But there are ways to work with it more consciously.
1. Keep a "bold-but-not-now" folder
Instead of abandoning risky ideas altogether, document them. Write them down, sketch them out, and store them somewhere intentionally. This preserves your intellectual trajectory, even if the timing is not yet right.
2. Think in terms of a project portfolio
Not every project needs to carry the same level of risk. Many researchers benefit from mixing safer, output-oriented work with more speculative thinking, rather than placing all their hopes on a single project.
3. Use co-authorship strategically
Collaboration can also mean shared risk. Co-authored projects can create space to experiment, test ideas, or explore new directions in a more protected way.
A practical tool to make this visible
To support researchers with exactly this kind of planning, I created a short resource called the Risk-Friendly Project Planning worksheet.
It helps you:
- map your current research projects
- make space for ideas you have put on hold
- identify small, concrete ways to develop bold ideas without increasing career risk
You can download the worksheet here.
You are not alone in this
If you feel torn between intellectual ambition and structural insecurity, you are far from alone. This tension is not a personal flaw. It is a feature of the current academic system.
Learning how to protect your creativity while navigating precarity is not about being less ambitious. It is about being strategic, realistic, and kind to yourself at the same time.
And that, too, is a form of academic skill.
Stay in the loop
Get occasional notes on academic writing, publishing, and building an intellectual life — no spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Subscribe to the newsletter