In addition to considering a researcher’s position within the network of science, it is important to understand how key collaborators can play a role in boosting a researcher’s career. When this network effect is examined, it is clear to see that the impact of collaborating with top scientists is very effective at increasing the future impact of an early researcher’s career, and that effect increases for researchers the earlier they are in their career (Qi et al., 2017; Li et al., 2019). While there are multiple ways to define top scientists, the general trend holds that having top collaborators on a researcher’s early publications significantly increases the likelihood of that researcher becoming a top scientist. Li et al. found that the positive effect of this top collaborator is most significant when the early-career researcher has one or fewer of the following: is associated with a top 10% institution, is in the top 10% of publications for their career phase, is in the top 10% of citations received for their career phase. If a researcher is otherwise productive or has access to a prestigious institution, the impacts of that top collaborator are less significant. Inversely, this shows that it is especially important for researchers who have fewer institutional advantages or are less familiar with how the scientific research community operates to find top collaborators to help boost their careers.