# "Slow science" concept: first insights of perceptions and suggestions in an oceanography laboratory

Simon Barbot, Guillaume Roullet, Guillaume Serazin

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Simon Barbot, Guillaume Roullet, Guillaume Serazin. "Slow science" concept: first insights of perceptions and suggestions in an oceanography laboratory. EGU General Assembly 2024, Apr 2024, Vienne, France. 2024, 10.5194/egusphere-egu24-11767. [hal-04808356](https://hal.science/hal-04808356v1)

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Submitted on 28 Nov 2024

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# “Slow science” concept: first insights of perceptions and suggestions in an oceanography laboratory

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Simon Barbot¹, Guillaume Roullet¹, and Guillaume Serazin²
(simon.barbot@ifremer.fr)

¹ Laboratoire d'Océanographie Physique et Spatiale, UMR 6523 (IFREMER, CNRS, IRD, UBO), IUEM, FR-29200 Brest, France
² Naval Academy Research Institute, Brest 29240, France

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## 2. Where did the disruptive science go ?

* « Disruptive index » of papers and patents (Park et al., 2023)

➤ becoming less disruptive over time

* Amount of material and energy throughput (e.g. computational resources, observational systems)

➤ Need to increase to achieve new scientific results over time.

* Alike several dynamical systems, the return-on-investment drop when the complexity of the system increases.

As we celebrate the 200 year of the second principle in thermodynamics, we would like to remind that a larger energy input do not necessary imply a larger outcome (work produced) by the system, especially if the energy input is of high entropy or if the system has reduced efficiency.

If the research system happened to be in a falling return-on-investment scheme, it would also be likely trapped in the so-called red queen effect (Van Valen, 1973), where it would be necessary to increase material and energy throughput just keep in pace with the academic environment.

Thus, such as falling return-on-investment trap should be an additional motivation to rethink the quality, more than the quantity, of the research organization. The second law of thermodynamics should motivate us to bifurcate to another research system based on a different rhythm and efficiency.

### References :

Park, M., Leahey, E. & Funk, R.J. (2023) Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time. Nature 613, 138-144. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05543-x

Raworth K. (2017) Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist. Chelsea Green Publishing.

Stengers, I. (2018) Another Science is Possible: A Manifesto for Slow Science

Urai, A.E., Kelly, C. (2023) Point of View: Rethinking academia in a time of climate crisis. eLife. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.84991

Van Valen, L. (1973) A new evolutionary law. Evol Theory 1:1-30

Wilson, L. (1995) The Academic Man: A Study in the Sociology of a Profession (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315130804

### Fig. 3

Doughnut academia. Adapting the “doughnut” model of economics to the academic world enables us to visualize the inner social foundations that universities should provide, and the outer human and planetary boundaries that universities need to avoid overshooting. Note that the ordering of elements within the inner and outer rings is random; there is no direct pairing between foundations and ceilings. From Urai & Kelly (2023), adapted from Raworth (2017), under a CC-BY-SA license.