The foundations for a Slow Science movement were laid by a series of intellectual predecessors who began questioning the accelerating pace of research decades ago. As early as 1989, an article in Nature by Fisher et al. subtly alluded to the benefits of "slower science." The following year, bibliometrics pioneer Eugene Garfield explicitly framed the debate in a 1990 article for The Scientist titled "Fast Science vs. Slow Science, or Slow and Steady Wins the Race" . This nascent concept was further developed by biologist Lisa Alleva, who, in a 2006 letter to Nature , directly drew the powerful parallel between the ethos of the Slow Food movement and the need for a "Slow Science" approach, thereby helping to crystallize the central metaphor for the contemporary movement.
The Berlin Manifesto is a plea for the restoration of time and autonomy in scientific research. It calls on society and funding bodies to stop demanding immediate results and continuous justification, arguing that discovery requires open-ended, undirected time. Its core message is, "Bear with us, while we think," envisioning a protected space where science can proceed at its own deliberate pace, shielded from the distorting pressures of the modern, fast-paced world .
Faced with the unsustainable acceleration of academic life, this appeal calls for a "Slow Science" movement. It demands a shift away from the "Fast Science" model obsessed with quantity, grants, and bureaucracy, and a return to valuing deep thinking, quality research, and meaningful teaching. It is a plea to slow down, reject the culture of urgency, and protect the time necessary for genuine intellectual work. This petition was signed by 4,600 researchers and teacher-researchers of different nationalities, belonging to all fields of knowledge, from the social to the hard sciences .
The manifesto is a plea to decouple science from capitalist and industrial imperatives. The aim is to create a more robust, thoughtful, and socially engaged science that can effectively and humbly contribute to solving the complex, "messy" problems of the world, such as the ecological crisis. It is a call for scientists to slow down, think critically about their role, and reclaim their practice as a collective, careful, and civilizing adventure .
Major departments in computing, engineering and the natural sciences – including units at UC Berkeley, Cornell, Washington and others – have adopted the Computing Research Association's "Incentivizing Quality and Impact" guidelines, asking committees to judge candidates primarily on their 3–5 most significant contributions, not on sheer volume .
Over 26 000 individuals and organisations worldwide (universities, funders, journals) have now signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), that promote more responsible and inclusive research assessment practices pledging to move away from journal-based metrics .
This recent article covers the ongoing debate about publication limits and slow science, featuring Uta Frith's advocacy for slow science and expert discussions about reforming research assessment. The article highlights that while publication limits are provocative, systemic change requires broader reforms in research evaluation.
"Change needs to come top-down from grant funders and evaluators of research, as well as bottom-up from a grassroots movement of researchers themselves." - Uta Frith
Adam Kun's comprehensive analysis examines how the academic reward system, with its emphasis on bibliometric numbers and competitive funding, creates perverse incentives that undermine scientific integrity. Drawing on data from Hungary and evolutionary biology principles, Kun argues that the system selects for precocity rather than quality and proposes concrete reforms to foster more ethical and sustainable research practices .
Uta Frith's seminal article in Trends in Cognitive Sciences makes a compelling case for transitioning from Fast Science to Slow Science. Drawing on her 50 years of experience in academia, Frith argues that the current "publish or perish" culture is bad for both scientists and science, and offers concrete suggestions for creating a healthier, more sustainable research ecosystem .