This 2006 scientific biography of Andre Geim, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics this year, is interesting partly because of Geim’s refusal to stick to his Ph.D. topic in an attempt to get tenure. In the U.S. at least, universities generally restrict tenure to those who are “leaders in their field”, which is tough to achieve if you’ve only worked in a field for a few years. American universities thus tend to penalize the most creative professors since only the plodders are willing to stick with the same narrow topic for 6 years of Ph.D., 2 years of post-doc, and 6 years of assistance professorship.
[Geim’s success in Europe and England does not necessarily show that their systems are necessarily more congenial to the creative than ours, of course. More likely is that he was simply recognized as exceptional.]
American universities evaluate tenure on the basis of publications (refereed journals) and research dollars brought in the door. Some may even evaluate teaching, but granted, it is mostly money and papers. However, if one is creative across different fields, and is well-published in reputable journals, and has at least some level of grant support, they are likely to be in a good position for tenure. I therefore think it is an overstatement to suggest that American universities tend to penalize the most creative professors.
Steve: Most of my experience is in the EECS department at MIT and our most creative professor, who liked to have his graduate students put just their names on papers, was in fact denied tenure. A friend at Stanford told me about the “leader in one’s field” criterion that they were using (he switched research areas after three years at Stanford, then left to join a corporate research lab just before being denied tenure). I don’t want to work my personal anecdotes too hard, though; the strongest evidence that American schools are discouraging creativity is to look at the professors who remain on campus!
Dude, when I left Italy, you were not allowed to stray from you final year dissertation. Nobody would consider you for a Ph.D if your final year dissertation was not in the very same topic. The issue was (is?) of a feudal mentality: ‘this is my area, keep out’. I did cause substantial grief when I worked there for one year after my Ph.D in the UK. Asking questions, especially mildly challenging ones, at seminars was *not* cool if you were not member of the very same group the speaker was. Unsurprisingly I moved back to the UK.
Mind you, once I overheard a chap (who had been an editor for Nature) bitterly complain that going from a model organism to another damaged his career, because he could not establish himself as a well known figure on a specific topic. So things are not all that rosy in the UK either.
Basically, alpha males like authority and deference to authority. Alpha males run everything, universities included. Moving in to take on an old dog is unlikely to go down well. Serious scientists should be intellectually strong enough to take all comers, and therefore should be less authoritarian and feel less intimidated by novelty. The theory might not apply that well in practice though.
Phil, of course you are dead on. But this is a problem with all levels of academia starting with the classroom. The most obedient students are the ones most successful.
Obedience in the class room, in the lab, as a post doc and so on. If you are not obedient, they will punish you severely. Obedience and creativity usuallly don’t intersect.
So the pipeline itself is a little dry even before the question of tenure comes up.