The reasons for the decline in the revolutionary nature of scientific work may be hidden in poor funding, flawed review processes, and may also be the result of a competition between universities for the quantity, not the quality, of the research published.

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Scientists say that despite the unprecedented expansion of scientific and technical knowledge, the pace of innovation in science is slowing. research group Analyzed data from 45 million articles and 3.9 million patents over 65 years (1945–2010) to answer the question of why this is happening.

• Analysis of scientific studies confirms the decline in research productivity in semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and other fields;
• Articles, patents, and even grant applications have become less innovative than previous work and are less likely to bridge different areas of expertise;
• The gap between the year of discovery and the awarding of the Nobel Prize has widened, indicating that today’s contributions to science are significantly less than in the past.

Revolutionism decreased to 91.9% in social sciences and to 100% in physical sciences. Regarding patents, from 1980 to 2010, the rate of decline in innovation ranged from 78.7% in computers and communication devices to 91.5% in pharmaceuticals and medical preparations.

The decline is also remarkable from a linguistic point of view. Groundbreaking research and patents often introduce new terms. So, if innovation declines, so should the diversity of vocabulary used in science and technology. Scientists have indeed found a significant reduction in this indicator: 76.5% in the social sciences, 88% in technology, 32.5% in the chemical industry and 81% less in computers and communication tools.

At the same time, the general trend does not exclude the possibility of major breakthroughs. They still do. For example, the measurement of gravitational waves and the development of vaccines against COVID-19 do not contradict the general slowdown in innovation activity. That is, the reduction in total groundbreaking scientific activity does not exclude individual revolutionary work.