Marek Kwiek with a seminar at Stanford University (USA), June 7, 2022.

Marek Kwiek at METRICS Meta-Research Innovation Center with an invited lecture and seminar in a seminar series spring 2022.

The title: “Research Productivity from a Longitudinal Perspective: Once Highly Productive, Always Highly Productive?”.

Abstract: In this research, a national-level study (Poland) on changing research productivity of scientists in STEMM disciplines is contrasted with a global-level study (38 OECD economies, 1990-2020). Two self-produced large-scale data sets are used: “The Laboratory of Polish Science” with full biographical, administrative, and bibliometric metadata of 100,000 scientists (and their 400,000 publications); and the metadata from Scopus database (through the ICSR Lab) at an individual level of Scopus IDs (4.1 million scientists).

The research question is to what extent individual productivity changes over a life-course: what was the productivity of current full professors when they were at assistant and associate professors. This research distinguishes between age, cohort, and period effects, following these important and rarely used demographic distinctions. Large cohorts of scientists of the same academic age group are traced over their careers lasting 20-30 years.

This research shows the power of (structured) Big Data in quantifying academic careers, with discussions of methodological steps and proxies used in a general transition: from publications (bibliometrics) to individual scientists (global academic career studies) as a unit of analysis.