Marek Kwiek had a seminar at the University of Oxford (CGHE) about lifetime science career trajectories on April 14, 2026.
The seminar was about „Surprising Patterns of Changing Productivity Classes. A Longitudinal Study of 320,000 Scientists”.
Abstract
The present study focuses on persistence in research productivity over the course of an individual’s entire scientific career. We track “late-career” scientists—scientists with at least 25 years of publishing experience (N = 320,564)—in 16 STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine) and social science disciplines from 38 OECD countries for up to 5 decades. Our OECD sample includes 79.42% of late-career scientists globally. We examine the details of their mobility patterns as early-career, midcareer, and late-career scientists between decile-based productivity classes, from the bottom 10% to the top 10% of the productivity distribution. Methodologically, we turn a large-scale bibliometric data set (Scopus raw data) into a comprehensive, longitudinal data source for research on careers in science. The global science system is highly immobile: Half of global top performers continue their careers as top performers and one-third of global bottom performers as bottom performers. Jumpers-Up and Droppers-Down are extremely rare in science. The chances of moving radically up or down in productivity classes are marginal (1% or less). Our regression analyses show that productivity classes are highly path-dependent: There is a single most important predictor of being a top performer, which is being a top performer at an earlier career stage.
Marek Kwiek, professor and chairholder, UNESCO Chair in Institutional Research and Higher Education Policy, University of Poznan, Poland. A Visiting Researcher at the German Center for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW) in Berlin in 2022-2024. His research area is quantitative studies of science and sociology of science; and his current focus is on women in science, social stratification in science, and global academic elites. His recent articles are in “Higher Education”, “Studies in Higher Education”, “Quantitative Science Studies”, “Journal of Informetrics” and “Scientometrics”. His work on attrition and retention in global science was recently featured in “Nature News” (2024, 2025). An international expert for the European Commission, USAID, OECD, World Bank, UNESCO, Council of Europe, and numerous national governments. An ordinary member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (EASA) in Salzburg and Academia Europaea in London, the European Academy of Sciences. He belongs to the top 2% of most highly cited researchers.
