Impact of major awards on the subsequent work of their recipients

Posted on by Academic achievements

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. 2023 Aug 9;10(8):230549.


doi: 10.1098/rsos.230549.


eCollection 2023 Aug.

Affiliations

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Andrew Nepomuceno et al.


R Soc Open Sci.


.

Abstract

To characterize the impact of major research awards on recipients’ subsequent work, we studied Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Physics and MacArthur Fellows working in scientific fields. Using a case-crossover design, we compared scientists’ citations, publications and citations-per-publication from work published in a 3-year pre-award period to their work published in a 3-year post-award period. Nobel Laureates and MacArthur Fellows received fewer citations for post- than for pre-award work. This was driven mostly by Nobel Laureates. Median decrease was 80.5 citations among Nobel Laureates (p = 0.004) and 2 among MacArthur Fellows (p = 0.857). Mid-career (42-57 years) and senior (greater than 57 years) researchers tended to earn fewer citations for post-award work. Early career researchers (less than 42 years, typically MacArthur Fellows) tended to earn more, but the difference was non-significant. MacArthur Fellows (p = 0.001) but not Nobel Laureates (p = 0.180) had significantly more post-award publications. Both populations had significantly fewer post-award citations per paper (p = 0.043 for Nobel Laureates, 0.005 for MacArthur Fellows, and 0.0004 for combined population). If major research awards indeed fail to increase (and even decrease) recipients’ impact, one may need to reassess the purposes, criteria, and impacts of awards to improve the scientific enterprise.


Keywords:

awards; bibliometrics; research incentives.

Conflict of interest statement

At the time of writing, Professor John Ioannidis is a Board Member of Royal Society Open Science, but had no involvement in the review or assessment of the paper. Foundation website and Scopus for indicators that a Fellow qualified as a research scientist.

Figures


Figure 1.



Figure 1.

Nobel and MacArthur age distribution.


Figure 2.



Figure 2.

Pre- versus post-award citation counts. Each dot represents one Nobel Laureate. Red line is y = x.


Figure 3.



Figure 3.

Pre- versus post-award citation counts. Each dot represents one MacArthur Fellow. Red line is y = x.


Figure A1.



Figure A1.

Exclusion of MacArthur Fellows by field.


Figure A2.



Figure A2.

Boxplots of pre- and post-award citation difference scores by award type.

References

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