相关论文: Scientific Talent Leaks Out of Funding Gaps

Using newly-assembled data from 1980 through 2024, we show that 25% of scientifically-active, US-trained STEM PhD graduates leave the US within 15 years of graduating. Leave rates are lower in the life sciences and higher in AI and quantum…

The design of research grants has been hypothesized to be a useful tool for influencing researchers and their science. We test this by conducting two thought experiments in a nationally representative survey of academic researchers. First,…

This report summarizes changes in federal research funding to the medical physics community between FY24 and FY25. By linking the AAPM membership database with NIH RePORTER records, we quantified the distribution of NIH funding for projects…

Setbacks are an integral part of a scientific career, yet little is known about whether an early-career setback may augment or hamper an individual's future career impact. Here we examine junior scientists applying for U.S. National…

Government funding agencies and foundations tend to perceive novelty as necessary for scientific impact and hence prefer to fund novel instead of incremental projects. Evidence linking novelty and the eventual impact of a grant is…

Tenure is a cornerstone of the US academic system, yet its relationship to faculty research trajectories remains poorly understood. Conceptually, tenure systems may act as a selection mechanism, screening in high-output researchers; a…

We surveyed 113 astronomers and 82 psychologists active in applying for federally funded research on their grant-writing history between January, 2009 and November, 2012. We collected demographic data, effort levels, success rates, and…

Despite increasing representation in graduate training programs, a disproportionate number of women leave academic research before obtaining an independent position. To understand factors underlying this trend, we analyzed a…

The proposed reductions in federal research support proposed by the Trump Administration for 2026 would profoundly degrade the United States research universities, especially in the STEM fields and medicine (STEMM). A potentially…

The average age at which U.S. researchers get their first grant from NIH has increased from 34.3 in 1970, to 41.7 in 2004. These data raise the crucial question of the effects of aging on the scientific creativity and productivity of…

Over the last decade proposal success rates in the fundamental sciences have dropped significantly. Astronomy and related fields funded by NASA and NSF are no exception. Data across agencies show that this is not principally the result of a…

Extensive research has documented the immediate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientists, yet it remains unclear if and how such impacts have shifted over time. Here we compare results from two surveys of principal investigators,…

Understanding how institutional changes within academia may affect the overall potential of science requires a better quantitative representation of how careers evolve over time. Since knowledge spillovers, cumulative advantage,…

Despite persistent efforts to understand the dynamics of creativity of scientists over careers in terms of productivity, impact, and prize, little is known about the dynamics of scientists' disruptive efforts that affect individual academic…

Scientific research funding is allocated largely through a system of soliciting and ranking competitive grant proposals. In these competitions, the proposals themselves are not the deliverables that the funder seeks, but instead are used by…

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…

The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly disrupted the scientific enterprise, but we lack empirical evidence on the nature and magnitude of these disruptions. Here we report the results of a survey of approximately 4,500 Principal…

Retracting academic papers is a fundamental tool of quality control, but it may have far-reaching consequences for retracted authors and their careers. Previous studies have highlighted the adverse effects of retractions on citation counts…

Scientific innovation often comes from researchers who pivot across disciplines. However, prior work found that established researchers face productivity penalties when pivoting. Here, we investigate the consequences of pivoting at the…

College students graduating in a recession have been shown to face large and persistent negative effects on their earnings, health, and other outcomes. This paper investigates whether students delay graduation to avoid these effects. Using…