Athena’s Angels argue in an NRC article that comparing science to elite sports is perverse. The article was prompted by the metaphor “Sometimes, research is like elite sport” that was chosen by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) as the starting point for its latest issue of the magazine Onderzoek.
We argue that a competitive work environment nourished by the elite sports metaphor has adverse effects on individual researchers and research as a whole. Scientific progress actually benefits from open knowledge sharing, integrity, diversity, and social safety.
Read the full article (in Dutch) in the NRC here. Comments on the debate on comparing science to top sport can be read here.
