ArticleNature communications2019
Early-career setback and future career impact.
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 34 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed.
- How contemporary academic structures constrain scientific creativity and hold back early-career researchers.Nature human behaviour · 2026Review
- The rise of large language models and the direction and impact of US federal research funding.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Impact of early career medical research funding on subsequent publication outcomes and research income for female and male applicants in the United Kingdom.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Gender and disciplinary differences in grant proposal peer review: Content and sentiment in 39,280 reports.PloS one · 2026Article
- A transatlantic joint lab model for interdisciplinary research.Nature microbiology · 2025Article
- Proposal Writing Training and Idea Development for Early-Career Researchers Based on Constructive Alignment, Co-Creation and Active Learning Strategies.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Early career setback and future achievement in professional sports.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Scientific publications that use promotional language in the abstract receive more citations and public attention.Communications psychology · 2025Article
- Tenure and research trajectories.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Assessing the scientific and economic impacts of the experiments conducted onboard the International Space Station.NPJ microgravity · 2025Article
- Article
- Reinforcement generates systematic differences without heterogeneity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Supervisors' Academic Supervising Behaviors and Graduate Students' Academic Thriving: The Mediating Roles of Admiration and Task Engagement.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Collective dynamics behind success.Nature communications · 2024Review
- Use of Promotional Language in Grant Applications and Grant Success.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- China and the U.S. produce more impactful AI research when collaborating together.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Promotional language and the adoption of innovative ideas in science.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Mapping philanthropic support of science.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Empirically Derived Principles for Research Funding Success: A Primer for Early Career Academic Investigators.International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics · 2024Article
- A new approach to diagnosing and researching developmental prosopagnosia: Excluded cases are impaired too.Behavior research methods · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Setbacks are an integral part of a scientific career, yet little is known about their long-term effects. Here we examine junior scientists applying for National Institutes of Health R01 grants. By focusing on proposals fell just below and just above the funding threshold, we compare near-miss with narrow-win applicants, and find that an early-career setback has powerful, opposing effects. On the one hand, it significantly increases attrition, predicting more than a 10% chance of disappearing permanently from the NIH system. Yet, despite an early setback, individuals with near misses systematically outperform those with narrow wins in the longer run. Moreover, this performance advantage seems to go beyond a screening mechanism, suggesting early-career setback appears to cause a performance improvement among those who persevere. Overall, these findings are consistent with the concept that "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger," which may have broad implications for identifying, training and nurturing junior scientists.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.