ArticlePloS one2020
Work honored by Nobel prizes clusters heavily in a few scientific fields.
Article in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Uncovering simultaneous breakthroughs with a robust measure of disruptiveness.Science advances · 2026Article
- The mosaic of science: Disciplinary diversity and scientific prestige in research groups in Colombia.PloS one · 2026Article
- Prediction of transformative breakthroughs in biomedical research.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- A multidimensional research productivity dataset of 21Scientific data · 2025Article
- How the Nobel Committee for Chemistry Has Shaped the Nobel Prize: Historical Trends Based on the Nobel Prize Nomination Archive.ACS omega · 2025Article
- Review
- Winners and runners-up alike?-a comparison between awardees and special mention recipients of the most reputable science award in Colombia via a composite citation indicator.Humanities & social sciences communications · 2022Article
- The Colombian scientific elite-Science mapping and a comparison with Nobel Prize laureates using a composite citation indicator.PloS one · 2022Article
- Between two stools? Pharmacologists nominated for Nobel prizes in "physiology or medicine" and "chemistry" 1901-1950 with a focus on John Jacob Abel (1857-1938).Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2021Article
- Large-scale analysis of delayed recognition using sleeping beauty and the prince.Applied network science · 2021Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
We aimed to assess whether Nobel prizes (widely considered the most prestigious award in science) are clustering in work done in a few specific disciplines. We mapped the key Nobel prize-related publication of each laureate awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine, Physics, and Chemistry (1995-2017). These key papers mapped in only narrow sub-regions of a 91,726-cluster map of science created from 63 million Scopus-indexed published items. For each key Nobel paper, a median of 435 (range 0 to 88383) other Scopus-indexed items were published within one year and were more heavily cited than the Nobel paper. Of the 114 high-level domains that science can be divided into, only 36 have had a Nobel prize. Five of the 114 domains (particle physics [14%], cell biology [12.1%], atomic physics [10.9%], neuroscience [10.1%], molecular chemistry [5.3%]) have the lion's share, accounting in total for 52.4% of the Nobel prizes. Using a more granular classification with 849 sub-domains shows that only 71 of these sub-domains (8.3%) have at least one Nobel-related paper. Similar clustering was seen when we mapped all the 40,819 Scopus-indexed publications representing the career-long output of all the Nobel laureates. In conclusion, work resulting in Nobel prizes is concentrated in a small minority of scientific disciplines.
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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.