Creative Bursts and Intellectual Outliers

Within an individual’s career or an organization’s lifetime, there may be a period when they are especially creative or part of a “flaring of intellectual outliers,” defined by Augier, March, and Marshall (Organization Science, 2015) as “small groups of thinkers who briefly, but decisively, influence the development of ideas, technologies, policies, or worldviews.” Occasionally, individual and organizational factors interact to help encourage or cultivate intellectual outliers with constructive and innovative results; but they usually don’t last.

The Andrew W. Marshall Foundation seeks papers that examine how collective creativity among peer groups or within an organization comes about, is fostered, and is maintained.

What are the metrics you would use to describe and define “intellectual outliers”? What conditions foster creative bursts and what cultivates intellectual outliers? What mechanisms work against keeping them innovative and creative? What can organizations do to prevent these groups of collective creativity from being suffocated? How does an organization maintain and encourage creativity as it changes (e.g., growth, culture, environment)?

Writers may examine groups of people who work together to notably advance their fields for a sustained period or share an experience that spawns later bursts of creativity from those who participated in it. Writers may also examine organizations that present or have presented unusual points of view proven to be especially noteworthy or useful; the invention of new ideas or perspectives; or more mainstream cases of creative bursts, recognized at the time or later. Writers may take a variety of approaches, including but not limited to conceptual papers, case studies, statistical approaches, or other qualitative or quantitative approaches. If writers analyze case studies, it is important that they use original or little-known cases, or provide new interpretations of known cases.

AWMF is most interested in submissions relevant to long-term international and U.S. national security broadly conceived. This does not mean the topic is limited to traditional defense subjects; it may include cases that show significant insight into culture, organizational and social behavior, or the potential for technological or scientific advancement, to name a few examples. Writers also may present case studies from other fields, such as business, scientific research, or the arts, that, by adoption or analogy, become useful for thinking about U.S. strategic competitions.

AWMF seeks submissions that:

• Identify new ways of looking at a problem;
• Break through disciplinary silos;
• Explore concepts, analyze original or little-known case studies or provide new interpretations, or posit plausible futures;
• Are informed by research; and
• Contribute to further understanding of the strategic questions relevant to U.S. national security.

Submissions that explore new methods of analysis, incorporate perspectives from fields not traditionally associated with national security studies, introduce new data or interpretations of data, and/or draw on foreign language material are especially welcome. Submissions that employ common interpretations of widely known case studies and submissions that advocate for policy positions will not be accepted.

This competition follows a three-round process:

• Round One
  Submission of Paper Synopsis Deadline: 21 February 2022
  Up to 10 Semi-Finalists Awarded $500
• Round Two
  Submission of Paper Deadline: July 2022
  Up to 5 Finalists Awarded $2,500
• Round Three
  Submission of Final Paper Deadline: October 2022
  Grand Prize Winner Awarded $10,000

Winners will have the opportunity to present their work to leading scholars and practitioners in the national security field and beyond and will have their submission published as a paper or working paper by AWMF (author preference). (See “Awards” below for more details.) AWMF reserves the right to refrain from awarding prizes.

Submissions of synopses for consideration for Round One prizes were due no later than 11:59 PM ET on Monday, 21 February 2022. Round One is now closed.

Semi-Finalists selected for Round Two will have approximately four months to write their papers. Finalists selected for Round Three will have approximately two months to refine their papers for final submission, with an anticipated deadline in October 2022.

A full submission consists of:

• Name and contact information
• An attestation that the work submitted follows the competition rules (see “Eligibility” below)
• A title
• A paper synopsis, not to exceed 500 words. Because submissions must be original work produced for this competition, synopses should be written in the future tense.

The synopsis text must contain the following elements:

• The primary question(s) your paper will investigate and any ancillary areas of investigation
• Relevant contextual information
• How your paper will directly address the Paper Prize prompt
• How your questions complement or diverge from existing work related to the Paper Prize prompt
• Your approach: the methods you will use, the types of sources you will consult, and why you think these methods and sources will help you answer your question
• How your idea will contribute to further understanding of the strategic questions relevant to U.S. national security

If your 500-word synopsis requires a diagram, formula, graph, or other type of image/file other than text that is not accepted by the submission form, please email it to info@andrewwmarshallfoundation.org. Any supplementary image that contains a significant amount of text (even if explanatory) over the 500-word limit will not be accepted.

Should you be selected as a Round Two Semi-Finalist or a Round Three Finalist, the papers these synopses describe will need to be well-researched and intellectually bold. They must not exceed 10,000 words, including all citations, exhibits (no more than 10 figures/tables/maps per paper), captions, and any other supplementary information. Citations must be footnoted in the Chicago Style.

This competition is open to all. AWMF is eager to find new voices of any age, background, experience, or discipline, including practitioners and scholars from non-traditional backgrounds with knowledge and skills transferable to national security.

This competition stipulates the following eligibility requirements and guidelines:

• Multi-author submissions are welcome.
• Authors may enter only one submission per prize.
• Submissions must be original work produced for this competition. They may contain minor similarities to previous work, but the majority of the content must be new work. Synopses and papers may not be under review or submitted concurrently to another publication or competition in any format (e.g., written, audio).
• Authors must write in a personal capacity, not for their university, employer, or other work-related purposes.
• No one other than the named authors may conduct research, draft, edit, or conduct any other work on the submissions.
• AWMF will reject any submissions containing plagiarized work. This includes the use of uncredited ideas or arguments that are reasonably accessible to the authors or claims of original data generation taken from existing sources.
• If authors’ employers require pre-publication reviews, authors must manage this process themselves. AWMF is unable to grant deadline extensions.
• There is no citizenship requirement.

Synopses and paper submissions will be blind judged by a panel of reviewers comprised of senior practitioners and scholars.

Reviewers will evaluate the submissions across the following criteria:

• Originality and significance of the question(s) to be answered
• Credibility and quality of expression and analysis
• Soundness and credibility of the research approach or proposed approach
• For Round One synopses, the feasibility of the paper

Round One

Up to 10 Authors Awarded:

1. Advancement to Round Two as a Semi-Finalist
2. $500
3. Access to reviewer feedback

Round Two

Up to 5 Authors Awarded:

1. Advancement to Round Three as a Finalist
2. $2,500
3. Access to reviewer feedback
4. Potential opportunity to present one’s paper at a public event to a wide audience of scholars and practitioners in the national security field

Round Three

Grand Prize Winner Awarded:

1. $10,000 Grand Prize
2. The opportunity to present one’s paper in a closed-door session
3. The opportunity to present one’s work at a public event to a wide audience of scholars and practitioners in the national security field
4. Publication of the submission as a paper or working paper by AWMF. Authors may tailor their papers and seek publication elsewhere once the competition is completed, as long as AWMF’s award is acknowledged in writing.

AWMF will announce publicly all Semi-Finalists, Finalists, and the Grand Prize Winner once the competition is completed.

If a submission is written by multiple authors, AWMF will divide the award equally unless otherwise instructed in writing signed by all of the authors.

Any award of monetary value is a prize for the round to which authors submit; it is not grant funding.

AWMF reserves the right to refrain from awarding prizes.

Email us at info@andrewwmarshallfoundation.org.