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Universal productivity patterns in research careers

Andre S. Sunahara, Matjaz Perc, Haroldo V. Ribeiro

Abstract

A common expectation is that career productivity peaks rather early and then gradually declines with seniority. But whether this holds true is still an open question. Here we investigate the productivity trajectories of almost 8,500 scientists from over fifty disciplines using methods from time series analysis, dimensionality reduction, and network science, showing that there exist six universal productivity patterns in research. Based on clusters of productivity trajectories and network representations where researchers with similar productivity patterns are connected, we identify constant, u-shaped, decreasing, periodic-like, increasing, and canonical productivity patterns, with the latter two describing almost three-fourths of researchers. In fact, we find that canonical curves are the most prevalent, but contrary to expectations, productivity peaks occur much more frequently around mid-career rather than early. These results outline the boundaries of possible career paths in science and caution against the adoption of stereotypes in tenure and funding decisions.

Universal productivity patterns in research careers

Abstract

A common expectation is that career productivity peaks rather early and then gradually declines with seniority. But whether this holds true is still an open question. Here we investigate the productivity trajectories of almost 8,500 scientists from over fifty disciplines using methods from time series analysis, dimensionality reduction, and network science, showing that there exist six universal productivity patterns in research. Based on clusters of productivity trajectories and network representations where researchers with similar productivity patterns are connected, we identify constant, u-shaped, decreasing, periodic-like, increasing, and canonical productivity patterns, with the latter two describing almost three-fourths of researchers. In fact, we find that canonical curves are the most prevalent, but contrary to expectations, productivity peaks occur much more frequently around mid-career rather than early. These results outline the boundaries of possible career paths in science and caution against the adoption of stereotypes in tenure and funding decisions.
Paper Structure (7 sections, 2 equations, 2 figures)

This paper contains 7 sections, 2 equations, 2 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Results
  3. Discussion and Conclusions
  4. Methods

Figures (2)

  • Figure 1: Clustering patterns of researchers' productivity curves. The central panel displays a network representation, where each node represents a researcher and weighted edges connect those with similar productivity trajectories. Ten distinct communities, represented by different colors and labeled 1 to 10, are identified and correspond to groups of researchers with similar productivity patterns. The surrounding panels display the productivity curves of researchers in each community, with the black curves representing the average behavior of each cluster. The lengths of researchers' careers in each group are scaled to the unit interval and the numbers and fractions of researchers in each group are shown within each panel. The ten clusters are further grouped into six categories: constant (cluster 1), u-shaped (cluster 2), decreasing (cluster 3), periodic-like (cluster 4), increasing (clusters 5 and 6), and canonical-like (clusters 7 to 10) curves. Increasing and canonical-like patterns describe almost three-fourths of the researchers in our study, while periodic-like curves are the least common. Clusters and nodes that are close together share similar productivity patterns (see https://complex.pfi.uem.br/cluster for an interactive visualization).
  • Figure 2: Career length and cohort effects on the prevalence of productivity patterns. (A) Probability distributions of career lengths for each of the ten clusters of productivity trajectories, as determined by kernel density estimation. All clusters encompass a broad range of career lengths, but these distributions are more localized in distinct positions (Table S1 SI). (B) Prevalence of productivity patterns across four categories of career length: 10-14 years, 15-19 years, 20-24 years, and greater than 24 years. The dominant pattern among researchers with shorter careers, which also correspond to younger scholars, is the increasing productivity curve. This pattern becomes less prevalent among researchers with longer careers, which corresponds to more experienced scholars. Canonical-like trajectories exhibit the opposite behavior and are significantly more prevalent among senior researchers. Periodic-like curves are also more common among researchers with long careers, while constant, u-shaped and decreasing trajectories occur more among young researchers. (C) Comparison of the prevalence of productivity patterns in the initial career years of senior researchers with those exhibited in later career stages. The left bars show the fractions of each productivity pattern obtained when considering the initial 14 career years of researchers with careers longer than 24 years, and the right ones show the prevalence of patterns when considering the full range of their careers. The connections between the left and right bars indicate the migration flow among the productivity patterns. Almost half of canonical senior careers are classified as increasing curves in their beginnings; however, only 9% of senior researchers who exhibit early-career increasing productivity sustain this pattern with career progression.