The Interplay of Social Capital and Publication Impact on Academic Success

 

https://19-pacheco-torgal-19.blogspot.com/2024/02/adapt-or-become-irrelevant-navigating.html

Building on my post from February 22, 2024 (linked above) about how technology and social media are reshaping researchers' reputations and the dissemination of knowledge—based on insights from a pioneering Computer Vision group at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen, Germany—it's worth sharing an excerpt from a paper by a University of Kassel researcher, published in the Elsevier journal Technovation: 

"The regression results support the hypotheses of a positive relationship between scientists’ bonding social capital and the probability of being an above-average research performer in the profile of an impactful scientist as well as an ambidextrous scientist. Accessing a more extensive network of peers who share the same academic goals provides competitive advantages in the competition for...citations" 

However, it's crucial to recognize that producing highly cited papers remains a paramount competitive advantage, surpassing the benefits of high social capital. A study published in Nature analyzing the careers of over 40,000 researchers across eight scientific fields found that securing a research or faculty position at a top-tier university in a developed country is strongly linked to publishing at least one paper in the top 5% of most-cited articles during postdoctoral studies. https://19-pacheco-torgal-19.blogspot.com/2025/01/estudo-internacional-revela-receita.html

Declaration of competing interests - I declare that in 2023, I criticized two well-known (naive) German researchers who proposed a bibliometric approach for identifying talented young researchers based solely on the number of papers published in high-impact journals https://19-pacheco-torgal-19.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-german-researchers-who-love-high.html