A Recurring Capture Pattern in Academic Peer Review Systems: Why research converges toward short-term observable outputs rather than long-term knowledge accumulation

In academic research environments, work that produces immediately observable and reviewable outputs tends to be prioritized over knowledge that requires time-dependent accumulation and process-based validation. This paper documents a Recurring Capture Pattern (RCP) observed inacademic evaluation systems centered on publications and peer review. Under the institutional condition ofstatic snapshot evaluation and single-point peer review that fixes evaluation at one moment in time,individually rational behavior systematically converges not towardlong-term knowledge accumulation and value amplificationbut towardoptimization of outputs that are observable and evaluable at a single point in time. As these behaviors accumulate, they alter the evaluation structure itself, resulting inthe progressive invisibilization of time-dependent and process-dependent knowledgeand reinforcing the same behavioral convergence through a recursive institutional feedback loop. The pattern ultimately producesan expansion of non-evaluable knowledge domains and structural fixation of time-non-extended evaluation axes,indicating a structural misalignment between institutional objectives and rational behavioral adaptation. This paper analytically describes the structural relationship between institutional design and rational behavioral adaptation.