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We approach productivity in science in a longitudinal fashion: We track careers over time, up to 40 years. We first allocate scientists to decile-based publishing productivity classes, from the bottom 10% to the top 10%. Then, we seek…
Analyzing a large data set of publications drawn from the most competitive journals in the natural and social sciences we show that research careers exhibit the broad distributions of individual achievement characteristic of systems in…
In this research, the contributions of a highly productive minority of scientists to the national Polish research output over the past three decades (1992-2021) is explored. In almost all previous research, the approaches to high research…
Previous work indicates that over the past 20 years, the highest quality work have been published in an increasingly diverse and larger group of journals. In this paper we examine whether this diversification has also affected the handful…
Scientific journals are currently the primary medium used by researchers to report their research findings. The transformation of print journals into e-journals has simplified the process of submissions to journals and also their access has…
We examined a large population of Polish science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM) scientists (N = 16,083) to study rank advancement and productivity. We used two previously neglected time dimensions - promotion age…
In this paper, we focus on a rare scholarly theme of highly productive academics, statistically confirming their pivotal role in knowledge production across 11 systems studied. The upper 10 % of highly productive academics in 11 European…
We studied gender differences among Polish top performers (the upper 10% of scientists in terms of research productivity) in international research collaborations in 15 STEMM disciplines and over time. We examined five 6-year periods from…
Ever more frequently, governments have decided to implement policy measures intended to foster and reward excellence in scientific research. This is in fact the intended purpose of national research assessment exercises. These are typically…
This article analyzes the structure of perceived academic success. We combine survey data from 10,848 Polish scientists with their Scopus bibliometric data at the individual level. We use polychoric correlations, exploratory factor…
The present study focuses on persistence in research productivity over the course of an individual's entire scientific career. We track 'late-career' scientists - scientists with at least 25 years of publishing experience (N=320,564) - in…
Publication statistics are ubiquitous in the ratings of scientific achievement, with citation counts and paper tallies factoring into an individual's consideration for postdoctoral positions, junior faculty, tenure, and even visa status for…
We followed scientists who started publishing in 2000 and who continued publishing until 2020-2023 (N = 41,424). These survivors in science authored 2 million articles (N = 2,089,097) with more than 70 million cited references (N =…
The ability to attract and retain talented professors is a distinctive competence of world-class universities and a source of competitive advantage. The ratio of top scientists to academic staff could therefore be an indicator of the…
This longitudinal study explores persistence in research productivity over time. We examine the trajectories of the academic careers of 2,326 current full professors in 14 STEMM disciplines, studying their lifetime biographical histories…
In solo research, scientists compete individually for prestige, sending clear signals about their research ability, avoiding problems in credit allocation, and reducing conflicts about authorship. We examine to what extent male and female…
Do highly productive researchers have significantly higher probability to produce top cited papers? Or does the increased productivity in science only result in a sea of irrelevant papers as a perverse effect of competition and the…
The exponentially growing number of scientific papers stimulates a discussion on the interplay between quantity and quality in science. In particular, one may wonder which publication strategy may offer more chances of success: publishing…
Scientists are increasingly overwhelmed by the volume of articles being published. Total articles indexed in Scopus and Web of Science have grown exponentially in recent years; in 2022 the article total was approximately ~47% higher than in…
Citation metrics are becoming pervasive in the quantitative evaluation of scholars, journals and institutions. More then ever before, hiring, promotion, and funding decisions rely on a variety of impact metrics that cannot disentangle…