Recherche En Esprit Libre
The tag Recherche En Esprit Libre (research in free spirit) can be applied to any research works and publications satisfying the following conditions simultaneously:
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For at least one collaborator, no directed funding (i.e., fundings with designated research goal) was implied in their contribution.
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No directed funding was implied in the publication.
Note that not all fundings are directed. For instance, a publication funded by a grant awarded on merit but without a precise research goal also qualifies as Recherche En Esprit Libre.
This tag applies to works, but not persons. Researchers can have huge fundings for works considered to be important, but they may also do research work outside the framework of their fundings. Moreover, this tag is neutral, neither a praise or a demeaning on the quality of work or the character of researchers.
For those interested in using this tag, in a qualifying work, at places where we usually put funding information for the corresponding author, you can put this tag of Recherche En Esprit Libre, for example in the following format:
The contribution of John Smith is of type Recherche En Esprit Libre, i.e., not supported by any funding with precise predefined goal.
The purpose of this tag is to remind that, unlike the current trend (from external force) where research are supported and produced by funds with precise goals, there is the also another way to do research, which may also produce research of high quality. Without eyeshades, sometimes we can also arrive at extraordinary things.