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Quantifying the evolution of individual scientific impact

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Sinatra, Robert [Center for Complex Network Research and Physics Department, Northeastern University, Boston] Wang, Dashun [Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston] Deville, Pierre [UCL] Song, Chaoming [Department of Physics, University of Miami, Coral Gables] Barabasi, Albert-László [Center for Cancer Systems Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston]

Despite the frequent use of numerous quantitative indicators to gauge the professional impact of a scientist, little is known about how scientific impact emerges and evolves in time. Here, we quantify the changes in impact and productivity throughout a career in science, finding that impact, as measured by influential publications, is distributed randomly within a scientist's sequence of publications. This random-impact rule allows us to formulate a stochastic model that uncouples the effects of productivity, individual ability, and luck and unveils the existence of universal patterns governing the emergence of scientific success.The model assigns a unique individual parameter Q to each scientist, which is stable during a career, and it accurately predicts the evolution of a scientist's impact, from the h-index to cumulative citations, and independent recognitions, such as prizes.

Document type Article de périodique (Journal article) – Article de recherche
Publication date 2016
Language Anglais
Journal information "Science" - Vol. 354, no.6312, p. aaf5239-aaf5239 (2016)
Peer reviewed yes
Publisher American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
issn 0036-8075
e-issn 1095-9203
Publication status Publié
Affiliation UCL - SST/IRMP - Institut de recherche en mathématique et physique
Keywords Multidisciplinary
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Bibliographic reference Sinatra, Robert ; Wang, Dashun ; Deville, Pierre ; Song, Chaoming ; Barabasi, Albert-László . Quantifying the evolution of individual scientific impact. In: Science, Vol. 354, no.6312, p. aaf5239-aaf5239 (2016)
Permanent URL http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/196591