Related papers: Science as Exploration in a Knowledge Landscape: T…
Despite persistent efforts in revealing the temporal patterns in scientific careers, little attention has been paid to the spatial patterns of scientific activities in the knowledge space. Here, drawing on millions of papers in six…
Scientific discovery is shaped by scientists' choices and thus by their career patterns. The increasing knowledge required to work at the frontier of science makes it harder for an individual to embark on unexplored paths. Yet…
Scientific literature till date can be thought of as a partially revealed landscape, where scholars continue to unveil hidden knowledge by exploring novel research topics. How do scholars explore the scientific landscape , i.e., choose…
We analyze the publication records of individual scientists, aiming to quantify the topic switching dynamics of scientists and its influence. For each scientist, the relations among her publications are characterized via shared references.…
Human behaviors, including scientific activities, are shaped by the hierarchical divisions of geography. As a result, researchers' mobility patterns vary across regions, influencing several aspects of the scientific community. These aspects…
In recent years scholars have built maps of science by connecting the academic fields that cite each other, are cited together, or that cite a similar literature. But since scholars cannot always publish in the fields they cite, or that…
Some scientists are more likely to explore unfamiliar research topics while others tend to exploit existing ones. In previous work, correlations have been found between scientists' topic choices and their career performances. However,…
In scientific research, collaboration is one of the most effective ways to take advantage of new ideas, skills, resources, and for performing interdisciplinary research. Although collaboration networks have been intensively studied, the…
Infrastructure shapes societies and scientific discovery. Traditional scientific infrastructure, often static and fragmented, leads to issues like data silos, lack of interoperability and reproducibility, and unsustainable short-lived…
Gender inequalities in science have long been observed globally. Studies have demonstrated it through survey data or published literature, focusing on the interests of subjects or authors; few, however, examined the manifestation of gender…
What factors affect a scientist's choice of research problem? Qualitative research in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science suggests that this choice is shaped by an "essential tension" between the professional demand for…
From small steps to great leaps, metaphors of spatial mobility abound to describe discovery processes. Here, we ground these ideas in formal terms by systematically studying scientific knowledge mobility patterns. We use low-dimensional…
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…
Keeping up with the research literature plays an important role in the workflow of scientists - allowing them to understand a field, formulate the problems they focus on, and develop the solutions that they contribute, which in turn shape…
Mentorship in science is crucial for topic choice, career decisions, and the success of mentees and mentors. Typically, researchers who study mentorship use article co-authorship and doctoral dissertation datasets. However, available…
The practice of scientific research is often thought of as individuals and small teams striving for disciplinary advances. Yet as a whole, this endeavor more closely resembles a complex system of natural computation, in which information is…
Over the last four decades, the way knowledge is created in academia has transformed dramatically: research teams have grown larger, scholars draw from ever-wider pools of prior work, and the most influential discoveries increasingly emerge…
Scientific knowledge and advances are a cornerstone of modern society. They improve our understanding of the world we live in and help us navigate global challenges including emerging infectious diseases, climate change and the biodiversity…
To address complex problems, scholars are increasingly faced with challenges of integrating diverse knowledge domains. We analyzed the evolution of this convergence paradigm in the broad ecosystem of brain science, which provides a…
Hot streaks dominate the main impact of creative careers. Despite their ubiquitous nature across a wide range of creative domains, it remains unclear if there is any regularity underlying the beginning of hot streaks. Here, we develop…