Academia has <i>always</i> forced grad students to attempt innovative research. The core requirement of a PhD dissertation is &quot;novel findings&quot;—e.g., something completely new.<p>Apprentices work on papers and research for their professors. No one is incentivized to do replication work: either you replicate it successfully (great) or you find flaws. In the latter case, you&#x27;ll probably be a nit-picker anyway—also not really additive. On the off-chance that you refute a high-profile study (e.g., some of the outright instances of fraud), you might get some recognition, but now your name is associated with something negative (e.g., fraud: &quot;X is not true&quot;) vs. positive (&quot;X is true&quot;).<p>Finally, this is some of the role of review panels in journals: too pass the burden of proof.