Career on the Move: Geography, Stratification, and Scientific Impact (1404.6247v1)

Abstract: Changing institutions is an integral part of an academic life. Yet little is known about the mobility patterns of scientists at an institutional level and how these career choices affect scientific outcomes. Here, we examine over 420,000 papers, to track the affiliation information of individual scientists, allowing us to reconstruct their career trajectories over decades. We find that career movements are not only temporally and spatially localized, but also characterized by a high degree of stratification in institutional ranking. When cross-group movement occurs, we find that while going from elite to lower-rank institutions on average associates with modest decrease in scientific performance, transitioning into elite institutions does not result in subsequent performance gain. These results offer empirical evidence on institutional level career choices and movements and have potential implications for science policy.

• The paper reveals how scientists' career moves, analyzed through 420,000+ publications, illuminate the stratification in academic institutions.
• It shows that transitions from elite to lower-ranked institutions often decrease scientific impact, while shifts into elite settings offer no significant boost.
• The analysis finds that larger institutions correlate with higher citation impact without influencing publication quantity, underscoring systemic career effects.

Career on the Move: Geography, Stratification, and Scientific Impact

This paper undertakes a comprehensive examination of the mobility patterns of scientists at an institutional level, focusing on how career choices affect scientific outcomes, utilizing bibliometric data. The authors investigate over 420,000 papers to track the affiliation information of individual scientists, enabling the reconstruction of career trajectories over several decades.

Key Findings

1. Patterns of Mobility:
   • Scientists' career trajectories reveal a high degree of stratification based on institutional ranking. Mobility between elite institutions and lower-ranked institutions is notably rare.
   • Most scientists typically move only once or twice during their careers, often during the initial stages. This pattern aligns with common academic practices, such as postdoctoral fellowships or tenure-track transitions.
2. Institutional Influence on Scientific Production:
   • The size of an institution correlates significantly with the scientific impact measured by citations per paper, suggesting that larger institutions provide a more conducive environment for producing high-impact research.
   • Despite the correlation between institution size and research impact, institution size appears to have little influence on research productivity in terms of the number of publications.
3. Performance Impact of Movement:
   • Moving from elite to lower-ranked institutions generally results in a decrease in scientific impact, whereas transitions into elite institutions do not statistically improve research productivity or impact.
   • The stratification in career movements is robust across variations in individual research performance, indicating systemic factors that govern mobility beyond personal achievement or research quality.

Implications for Science Policy

The findings offer valuable insights for science policy decisions regarding talent management and institutional development. Understanding the stratification and geographic characteristics of academic mobility can guide policies aimed at enhancing inter-institutional collaboration, resource allocation, and career development support for scientists.

Future Research Directions

The results pave the way for future explorations into the dynamics of scientific mobility. Potential areas include expanding data sources to encompass a wider array of disciplines or examining temporal changes in mobility trends due to evolving academic landscapes and globalization. Additionally, exploring the implications of career longevity on mobility and performance metrics may yield further significant insights.

In summary, this paper provides an empirical foundation for understanding the complex relationship between career moves and scientific impact, emphasizing the stratification in institutional rankings and its influence on scientific productivity. The findings contribute to ongoing discussions about optimizing academic career trajectories within the scientific community.