How has scientific performance of distinguished young scholars in China changed compared to their early careers?
| Date | 02 October 2024 |
| Pages | 931-948 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-06-2023-0145 |
| Published date | 02 October 2024 |
| Author | Lihui Niu,Xiangyun Si,Feicheng Ma |
How has scientific performance of
distinguished young scholars in
China changed compared to their
early careers?
Lihui Niu and Xiangyun Si
School of Information Management, Wuhan University,Wuhan, China, and
Feicheng Ma
Center for the Study of Information Resources, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
Abstract
Purpose –This paper aims to conduct a comparative analysis of the scientificperformance of distinguished
young scholars in China during the pre-award and early stages of their research careers, aiming to provide
insightsintotheirgrowth pattern.
Design/methodology/approach –Spearman correlation was used to analyse the correlation between
various academic ages and awarding age of the distinguished young scholars. TheWilcoxon matched
pairs test was used to analyse variations in their scientific performance across different research
stages.
Findings –The findings showed that: a) early successful research experiences significantly impact their
emergence as outstanding scientists. While a low correlation exists between publication ages and awards,
perseverance proves crucial for later-stageacademic achievements; b) productivity increases before awards,
with notable variations between first-author and non-first-authored publications; c) collaboration intensifies
before awards, particularly in non-first author roles. However, discipline-specific variations highlight the
importance of smaller teams and first-author roles, especially in the early career stage; d) the correlation
between collaboration and productivity depends on research roles, emphasizing the evolving nature of
collaborationdynamics as scholars progress in their careers.
Originality/value –This study could offera reference for formulating well-founded talent training programs
and reward mechanisms.
Keywords Academic age, Scientific productivity, Collaboration, Distinguished young scholars,
Scientific careers
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Distinguished young scholars are a crucial driving force for national development and
scientific advancement. Governments and funding institutions allocate various resources to
cultivate and promote the growth of these talents. The National Science Fund for
Distinguished Young Scholars (NSFDYS) is one of the most important national science
research programs in China, established by the National Natural Science Foundation of
Funding: National Social Science Fund of China (19VXK09).
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
The Electronic
Library
931
Received6 June 2023
Revised24 August 2023
19December 2023
Accepted9 February2024
TheElectronic Library
Vol.42 No. 6, 2024
pp. 931-948
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0264-0473
DOI 10.1108/EL-06-2023-0145
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0264-0473.htm
China (NSFC) in 1994. Scholars under the ageof45 in China who were funded by NSFDYS
are distinguished young scholars. Understanding the patterns of scientific performance
among these elites not only holds significant importance inrationalizing the formulation of
policies for trainingand evaluating young talents in science and technology butalso provides
an opportunity for other scholars to improve their own scientific performance by learning
from these elites (Barabásiet al., 2012).
Based on a large number of digital publishing resources, using scientometrics
approaches to quantify the underlying mechanisms of scientific activities of researchers
to reveal various modes of scientific discovery and innovation can provide lessons for
the overall progress of science (Fortunato et al., 2018). Numerous scientometric studies
have explored scientific performance of diverse academic communities, including
Nobel Prize laureates (Li et al., 2020), Turing award laureates (Jin et al., 2021), Fields
Medal recipient (Rodríguez, 2022), librarians (Amanullah and Abrizah, 2023),
academic groups in business research (Wei and Zhang, 2020) and mobile information
systems (Zhang et al., 2022). These studies suggest that, as one important manifestation
of scientific performance, academic age at which one begins their academic journey is
crucial for academic success and are three crucial factors in determining funding and
promotions within the scientific community. However,limited stu dies have analysed the
age characteristics of the distinguished young scholars in China at the outset of their
research careers and their relationship to career success. Jones et al. (2010) has shown
that annual publication productivity is not evenly distributed but rather follows an S-
curve throughout a scientist’s career. This means that the quantity of publications
gradually increases, reaches a peak and then gradually decreases. Several researchers
have also shown that collaboration has a significant impact on scientific productivity
(Liu et al., 2022;Pan et al., 2023;Qi et al., 2017). However, there is limited knowledge
about the evolution of research productivity, collaboration patterns and their correlation
for distinguished young scholars in China. Bhandari et al. (2014) have differentiated the
importance of researchers in different roles during collaborative research. Thus, leading
to the hypothesis that distinguished young scholars in China may adopt different
productivity and collaboration strategies at different stages of their careers when they
take different research roles.
To fill the gaps, this study focuses on the recipients of the National Science Fund for
Distinguished Young Scholars (NSFDYS) in China. Scientific papers published by the
distinguished young scholars serve as the primary data for analysis.Their academic careers
are divided into two representative stages: early career and pre-award stage. The study
specifically examines the differences in collaboration patterns among them in three key
research roles during these stages. By exploring the variations in research productivity and
collaboration patterns for different research roles at each stage, the aim is to provide
recommendations for tailoredtraining programs and evaluation systems for young scientific
talents at different careerstages.
2.Literature review
Academic age, research productivity and collaboration ability are three crucial aspects for
measuring the scientific performance patterns of scientists (Li et al., 2020). To uncover the
development patterns of their scientific careers and formulate effective talent cultivation
strategies, several studies haveconducted statistical analyses on the ages of different groups
of elites. These studies have demonstrated variations in average age acrossdifferent groups.
For instance, among the 2020 Nobel Prize winners, humanists were the youngest with an
average age of 63, economists had an averageage of 67, scientists had an average age of 72
EL
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