A sharp decline in scientific output?, After winning the Nobel Prize, the Nobel Prize | winner | scientist
For many scientists, there is no greater achievement than winning the Nobel Prize. Since its establishment in 1901, this award recognizes breakthroughs that broaden human understanding of reality and change the world. But it may also be a productivity killer. A paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research on June 24th showed that after winning the Nobel Prize, scientists often experience a sharp decline in output.
According to a report in Science, researchers analyzed data from Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine from 1950 to 2010 and plotted changes in three factors after the award - the number of published papers, the influence of papers based on citation rates, and the novelty of ideas.
Researchers determined the novelty of each unique scientific idea in the paper through computer programs, and then assigned an age based on the time each idea first appeared in the unified medical language system of the National Library of Medicine in the United States. Compared to the publication date, papers with "young" viewpoints are given higher novelty scores.
The Nobel Prize is usually awarded to scientists who are in the later stages of their careers, and their work efficiency often decreases. Therefore, researchers compared Nobel laureates with another famous medical award, the Lasker Prize, in terms of age equivalent recipients. "This matching strategy is reasonable," said Kirk Doran, a social scientist at Notre Dame University who was not involved in the study. "Overall, the results are very convincing."
Before winning the award, future Nobel laureates publish papers more frequently, are more novel, and are cited more frequently than future Lasker laureates. However, after winning the Nobel Prize, the trend reversed. On average, the output rate, novelty, and citation rate of Nobel laureates have decreased, and are on par with Lasker Prize laureates, sometimes even lower than the latter. In terms of raw data, Nobel laureates published one more research result per year in the 10 years leading up to the award than Lasker laureates. However, in the 10 years following the award, the Lasker Prize winner published one more research result per year than the Nobel Prize winner. After winning the Lasker Prize, the output rate of papers also showed a slight decrease.
"I was surprised by this novelty shift," said Jayanta Bhattacharya, the first author of the paper and a health economist and epidemiologist at Stanford University in the United States. "I anticipated a shift in research productivity, but their shift towards less novel work caught me off guard."
Doran has studied the impact of winning the Fields Prize, also known as the Nobel Prize in Mathematics, on the career of mathematicians. The results indicate that their research productivity seems to decrease after receiving awards.
Although Bhattacharya and her colleagues emphasized that their analysis did not show a causal relationship between winning a Nobel Prize and declining research productivity, Doran pointed out that winning such a prestigious award is a life changing event for most scientists. They may be overwhelmed by opportunities for speeches, media interviews, or publishing books, which consume their time and energy in engaging in original scientific research.
"After winning the Nobel Prize, you can see that their lifestyles have undergone tremendous changes, indicating a fundamental shift in their lives." Bhattacharya said, "They are no longer just scientists, but also public intellectuals."
Bhattacharya believes that awarding this award to scientists in the later stages of their careers may be a good idea. "Presenting the Nobel Prize as a career achievement award can bring many benefits to scientists, while eliminating some of the hazards to scientific research," he said.
