Nominalisation

Noun phrases are often used in academic style as an alternative to longer, clausal constructions, thus enabling the writer/speaker to integrate a considerable amount of information into the noun-phrase subject slot or object slot in the clause. This process, using a noun phrase to express a meaning more typically associated with an item from another word class, is called nominalisation.

Nominalisations include nouns which express verb-type meanings and adjective-type meanings. They are more frequent in written academic styles than in spoken:

[IR = the academic discipline International Relations]
The result was an IR canon, of the ‘Plato to Nato’ variety, which was substantially anachronistic. Its dismantling over the last twenty years has much to do with efforts in the area of conceptual history. Despite this, and the keenness of post-positivist IR theorists to display an historical consciousness.
(compare: It was dismantled over the last twenty years, and this has much to do with efforts in the area of conceptual history. Despite this, and the fact that post-positivist IR theorists are keen to display the fact that they are historically conscious, IR and history continue to be associated uneasily with one another.)

[marking and recapture refer here to capturing and marking animals for scientific research]
The time lag between marking and first recapture was higher than the lag between second and third recapture, which indicates a trauma caused by the marking procedure.
(compare: The time lag between when we marked the animals and when we first recaptured them was higher than the lag between when we recaptured them for the second and third time…)