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Reputation and impact in academic careers.

ABSTRACT: Reputation is an important social construct in science, which enables informed quality assessments of both publications and careers of scientists in the absence of complete systemic information. However, the relation between reputation and career growth of an individual remains poorly understood, despite recent proliferation of quantitative research evaluation methods. Here, we develop an original framework for measuring how a publication's citation rate ?c depends on the reputation of its central author i, in addition to its net citation count c. To estimate the strength of the reputation effect, we perform a longitudinal analysis on the careers of 450 highly cited scientists, using the total citations Ci of each scientist as his/her reputation measure. We find a citation crossover c×, which distinguishes the strength of the reputation effect. For publications with c < c×, the author's reputation is found to dominate the annual citation rate. Hence, a new publication may gain a significant early advantage corresponding to roughly a 66% increase in the citation rate for each tenfold increase in Ci. However, the reputation effect becomes negligible for highly cited publications meaning that, for c ??c×, the citation rate measures scientific impact more transparently. In addition, we have developed a stochastic reputation model, which is found to reproduce numerous statistical observations for real careers, thus providing insight into the microscopic mechanisms underlying cumulative advantage in science.

SUBMITTER: Petersen AM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4217436 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Reputation and impact in academic careers.

Petersen Alexander Michael AM Fortunato Santo S Pan Raj K RK Kaski Kimmo K Penner Orion O Rungi Armando A Riccaboni Massimo M Stanley H Eugene HE Pammolli Fabio F

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20141006 43

Reputation is an important social construct in science, which enables informed quality assessments of both publications and careers of scientists in the absence of complete systemic information. However, the relation between reputation and career growth of an individual remains poorly understood, despite recent proliferation of quantitative research evaluation methods. Here, we develop an original framework for measuring how a publication's citation rate Δc depends on the reputation of its centr ...[more]

PMID: 25288774

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Project description:BackgroundThe delivery of research in healthcare in the UK is dependent on a subgroup of clinicians - clinical academics - who concurrently engage in clinical practice and academic activities. The need to increase access to such roles for general practice nurses has been identified, although the need for a robust career framework remains.AimsThis study, with a qualitative interview and focus group design, aimed to explore the concept of clinical academic careers for general practice nurses by identifying barriers and enablers associated with pursuing and performing such roles.MethodsGeneral practice nurses (n = 18) and general practitioners (n = 5) engaged in either an audio -recorded interview or focus group. Verbatim transcripts were subjected to thematic analysis.ResultsFour themes were identified: awareness and understanding; career pathway; personal and professional attributes; and organisational factors. Awareness and understanding were generally poor. Participants suggested that the career pathway was unclear, although it was generally assumed that such roles were 'out of reach' and require a minimum of Master's level education. An interest in research and the confidence to perform such duties were reported as the required personal and professional attributes. Organisational factors included the need for employers to understand the value and benefit of general practice nurse clinical academic roles, along with ensuring that the inevitable competing demands of such a role were appropriately managed.ConclusionsThis study highlights the difficulties faced by general practice nurses wishing to pursue a clinical academic career. Academia is seemingly placed on a pedestal, emphasising the need to embed research training early in nursing education to alter general practice nurse perceptions that clinical academic roles are unobtainable. The development of a robust career pathway for general practice nurse clinical academic roles may have a positive impact on the retention of experienced general practice nurses and attract newly qualified nurses. This research provides evidence as to the need for one.

Dataset Information

Reputation and impact in academic careers.

Publications

Reputation and impact in academic careers.

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