This is a fascinating and complex topic. To make the question tractable, I suggest first clarifying "you". Are we discussing a graduate student selecting a research topic for his/her PhD program? Are we discussing a professor who already has tenure? Are we discussing someone performing R&D in a corporate environment? Are we discussing a 'citizen scientist'? The four individuals I've identified here face very different situations.

I'm not an economist, but my understanding is that there exists a small subset of economists who are challenging the notion that productivity maximization is the proper goal of economics, considering that already realized past economic growth may be seriously damaging this planet's capability to sustain life. This just goes to show that trying to dictate a general goal for any field of study is likely to encourage the emergence of contrarians.