‘We had to write a paper in just one day’, says Leiden PhD candidate in astronomy Sander Schouws. ‘Because we knew: if we didn’t, the others would beat us to it.’ 

A rival research group from abroad had just discovered one of the most distant galaxies ever observed. This group submitted a proposal to use the Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile in order to conduct further measurements. Schouws’ group wanted to do the same.

‘We first had to wait and see if the other group would be granted time on the telescope, which was only fair. But for some reason, they weren’t allowed to make further observations of the galaxy, and we were. They were angry about that.

After some arguing, the ALMA organisation came up with a solution. ‘Normally, we would be the only ones with access to the data from our measurements for six months. That is a standard timeframe for writing a paper. But instead, that exclusive access period was scrapped, and both groups were granted access to the data.’ The result: a race to publish. And to win that race, it was all hands on deck in the Leiden research group.

BREAKTHROUGH

They came out on top, and the results were a breakthrough: this extremely early galaxy turned out to be far more ‘mature’ than expected, due to the presence of oxygen. ‘It’s like discovering a teenager in a place where you’d only expect to find babies’, says Schouws.

His research focuses on extremely distant galaxies, which offer a glimpse into the early universe. We still observe ‘old’ light from these galaxies, which has taken billions of years to reach us. Alongside the search for habitable planets beyond our solar system, this field is the most popular – and therefore the most competitive – branch of astronomy. ‘It truly is the frontier of our knowledge’, he agrees. ‘The research can be nasty sometimes, with backstabbing, but it’s also exciting.’

Science is always competitive, but astronomy stands out in this regard. Thousands of astronomers are vying to conduct observations using just a handful of telescopes advanced enough to do so. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomy’s latest flagship, received no fewer than 2,377 applications at the annual deadline in 2024. But many researches will not get a turn: collectively, they requested nine times more observation time than was available. 

To get ahead amid such fierce competition, it helps simply to write more papers. ‘The more you publish, the greater your chances of securing telescope time’, says Piyush Sharda, a postdoc at the Leiden Observatory.

And perhaps even more important than telescope time: publishing more also increases your chances of securing grants. ‘You constantly have to sell yourself to funders’, says Sharda. Grants have become essential as a source of additional funding to supplement the fixed (but shrinking) flow of government funding. ‘The Schoof cabinet hasn’t helped matters’, says Dennis Janssen, Director of Operations at the Observatory.

The funds that institutions such as NWO (the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research) and KNAW (the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) can allocate to grants are also shrinking, while the number of applications continues to grow. ‘We’re seeing this flow of funds steadily decrease. The pressure on professors to secure funding is increasing. Whereas in the past, an average grant would allow you to hire three PhD candidates, nowadays it’s one or maybe two. And so we’re seeing a gradual decline in this group.’

THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL

Mariska Kriek, a professor of extragalactic astronomy, is familiar with the stress of grant applications. ‘It sometimes feels very capitalist: the winner takes it all. When you land a large grant, you can immediately hire a lot of people. That makes the system vulnerable to inequality.’

Researchers on the lower rungs of the academic ladder experience the most pressure to publish, according to an international survey conducted in 2023 among 3,500 astronomers. After all, the careers of PhD candidates, postdocs and assistant professors are still uncertain. ‘It’s like top-level sports’, says Schouws. ‘You have to work very hard and have a bit of luck as well, otherwise you’re out.’

According to Kriek, PhD candidates should not be working in the most competitive fields. ‘That strange dynamic puts enormous pressure on PhD candidates, making them utterly miserable.’

‘There is less rigorous scrutiny of publications than in physics, for example, which exacerbates the cycle of quick and careless publishing’, says Sharda. ‘There are also more papers published in astronomy than in physics, while there is often only one peer reviewer per article. 

The more competitive the field, the stronger this pattern, say the astronomers, because there is a tendency to publish uncertain results anyway if they are interesting or provocative.

RUBBISH PAPERS

The survey also reveals that publication pressure leads to increased distrust of the scientific integrity of colleagues and competitors. ‘To avoid falling behind, people publish papers in a single weekend’, says Sharda. ‘Of course, some accuracy may be lost in that rush.’  

But not all mistakes are made by accident, he suspects. ‘Scientists want their papers to show that the research was worth the investment. Sometimes crucial information is omitted, or things are stitched together to make them look more credible.’ 

A well-known example was the ‘detection of life’ on exoplanet k12-18b. That ‘discovery’ by researchers from Cambridge was quickly debunked by other astronomers in early 2025. Schouws sees similar practices within his field. ‘Especially for ALMA, you sometimes come across certain papers that make you think: this is just rubbish.’

Professor Kriek refuses to take part in the frenzied dynamics and prefers to chart her own course. ‘Because I’m a bit more “senior”, I know I’m in a different position to the rest. If always being the first is all that matters, I don’t find that all that interesting. I deliberately try to avoid that rat race. Why would you put yourself through that?’ 

She studies the universe beyond the Milky Way – though not the most distant galaxies – and seeks out topics that the crowd is less likely to jump on. ‘Sometimes your idea is initially laughed at during a conference.’ Yet her research has led to valuable publications. ‘We still managed to get a few papers into Nature.’ And within her research group, the relatively relaxed approach is appreciated. ‘I think we’re a very friendly field.’

For research into the most distant galaxies, the atmosphere is harsher, Schouws admits. ‘Sometimes it’s a bit of a toxic culture, and that attracts a certain type of person – competitive macho types. Maybe I’m a bit like that myself.’