ArticleNature communications2019
Increasing trend of scientists to switch between topics.
Article in Nature communications, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Meta-Analysis of Gene Popularity: Less Than Half of Gene Citations Stem from Gene Regulatory Networks.Genes · 2021Pooled it
- Trends in Glucocerebrosides Research: A Systematic Review.Frontiers in physiology · 2020Pooled it
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- Structure, motion, and multiscale search of traveling networks.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Mid-career pitfall of consecutive success in science.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Productive scientists are associated with lower disruption in scientific publishing.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Collaboration and topic switches in science.Scientific reports · 2024Article
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- A network-based normalized impact measure reveals successful periods of scientific discovery across discipline.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- The power of peer networking for improving STEM faculty job applications: a successful pilot programme.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Surprising combinations of research contents and contexts are related to impact and emerge with scientific outsiders from distant disciplines.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Quantification of the spatial-temporal patterns of great ideas.PNAS nexus · 2023Article
- Quantifying human performance in chess.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Impactful scientists have higher tendency to involve collaborators in new topics.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Patterns of interest change in stack overflow.Scientific reports · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Despite persistent efforts in understanding the creativity of scientists over different career stages, little is known about the underlying dynamics of research topic switching that drives innovation. Here, we analyze the publication records of individual scientists, aiming to quantify their topic switching dynamics and its influence. We find that the co-citing network of papers of a scientist exhibits a clear community structure where each major community represents a research topic. Our analysis suggests that scientists have a narrow distribution of number of topics. However, researchers nowadays switch more frequently between topics than those in the early days. We also find that high switching probability in early career is associated with low overall productivity, yet with high overall productivity in latter career. Interestingly, the average citation per paper, however, is in all career stages negatively correlated with the switching probability. We propose a model that can explain the main observed features.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.