In a sense, it is trivial to state that a tenet of promoting robust and creative research is to work hard and become an excellent scientist. But the actual importance of this core belief may easily be underestimated. 

One center leader has made the point that creativity is, in essence, a kind of by-product of hard work; that is, one cannot be intentionally creative. Another reminds us that, in the collective imagination, the value of sustained effort and repetition is probably under-valued, whereas the idea of “effortless and unexpected comprehension” is probably overvalued as a way of promoting the generation of novel ideas. 

Well-rehearsed stories present the generation of great new ideas as a fascinating result of serendipity, thus implying that anyone could stumble upon an act of genius. Perhaps most famously, Alexander Fleming ‘accidentally’ discovered penicillin; in more recent times, Morten Meldal discovered the ‘click’ reaction - a discovery that was ultimately rewarded with the Nobel Prize in 2022 – resulting from a failed experiment. But even here – perhaps especially so – skill and hard work are important ingredients (see below, “Be Sloppy”).