The amount of published scientific research has been doubling almost every 15 years (Fortunato et al). This is paired with an increasing amount of data and tools of analysis that can be used to understand how scientific research evolves. Contandriopoulos et al, Qi et al, Fortunato et al, and Li et al’s findings were used to better understand the dynamics of how scientific research creates impactful output, and how the roles individual researchers play in the network of science effects that impactful output.
All of the mentioned researchers studied the importance of collaborators on scientific impact and success
The importance of collaborators on a researcher’s success was a key focus of all of the researchers in this review. The “multiscale network” (Fortunato et al, 2018) of scientific research has many elements of connectivity– fields, institutions, and works cited by a given publication are all a part of the network and can be analyzed to understand the patterns they affect.
Contandriopoulos et al examined how the diversity of a researcher’s collaboration network may predict the researcher’s success. Researchers who play more of a bridging role between different groups and communities within the research network are likely to produce more influential work (Contandriopoulos et al, 2016). It appears to be important for researchers who prioritize their research productivity to diversify their collaborators and communities to improve their structural position and make novel connections. The decision of who a researcher decides to collaborate with will not be made solely based on the potential for that collaborator to be a novel connection, but the impact on the researcher’s structural position should be considered if the researcher hopes to maximize their productive output over their careers. At the same time, we have seen that there are incentives in place that keep researchers choosing more conservative research topics and collaborations (Fortunato et al, 2018). A researcher’s awareness of the impact of their structural position may help them break free of their community silo that could be limiting their research impact.
In addition to the importance of a researcher’s position within the network of research, it is important to understand how key collaborators can play a role in boosting a researcher’s career. When this is network effect is examined, it is clear to see that the impact of collaborating with top scientists is very significant and greater 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% prestigious institution, is in the top 10% of publications for their phase of career, is in the top 10% of citations received for their phase of career. 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 have less of an understanding of how the scientific research community operates to find top collaborators to help boost their career outlooks.
The fact that the impact of these top collaborators is more significant the earlier they occur in a researcher’s career (Qi et al, 2017; Li et al, 2019) means that when students are least knowledgeable about the world of scientific research is when their decisions may be of highest impact for their future careers as scientists. It should be noted that while the impact of collaborating with top scientists is significant, Qi et al found that this relationship is not linear. There is a diminishing return to collaborating with an increasingly superlative scientist, and this is an indication that an early researcher does not need to be extraordinarily selective, and that almost any scientist in the top 10% of their field would be a valuable boost to an early researcher’s career.
The there is likely a significant amount of untapped potential in the scientific research community (Li et al, 2019), and a more thorough understanding of these dynamics may be able to lead to institutional policies that improve the output of impactful of scientific research over coming years. At the very least, it is especially important for young and early researchers to understand the value of the Science of Science and take the time to understand how the structural decisions they make align with their career goals.