Ryan Hill (Paper joint with Carolyn Stein), MIT
Ryan Hill (Paper joint with Carolyn Stein), MIT
SBBI Seminar: "Scooped! Estimating Rewards for Priority in Science"
SBBI Seminar: "Scooped! Estimating Rewards for Priority in Science"
28 Feb 202012:05 PM – 1:30 PM
Harvard community only
ABSTRACT:
The scientific community assigns credit or “priority” to individuals who publish an importantdiscovery first. We examine the impact of losing a priority race (colloquially known as getting“scooped”) on subsequent publication and career outcomes. To do so, we take advantage ofdata from structural biology where the nature of the scientific process together with the ProteinData Bank — a repository of standardized research discoveries — enables us to identify priorityraces and their outcomes. We find that race winners receive more attention than losers, butthat these contests are not winner-take-all. Scooped teams are 2.5 percent less likely to publish,are 18 percent less likely to appear in a top-10 journal, and receive 28 percent fewer citations.As a share of total citations, we estimate that scooped papers receive a credit share of 42percent. This is larger than the theoretical benchmark of zero percent suggested by classicmodels of innovation races. We conduct a survey of structural biologists which suggests thatactive scientists are more pessimistic about the cost of getting scooped than can be justifiedby the data. Much of the citation effect can be explained by journal placement, suggestingeditors and reviewers are key arbiters of academic priority. Getting scooped has only modesteffects on academic careers. Finally, we present a simple model of statistical discrimination inacademic attention to explain how the priority reward system reinforces inequality in science,and document empirical evidence consistent with our model. On the whole, these estimatesinform both theoretical models of innovation races and suggest opportunities to re-evaluate thepolicies and institutions that affect credit allocation in science.
The scientific community assigns credit or “priority” to individuals who publish an importantdiscovery first. We examine the impact of losing a priority race (colloquially known as getting“scooped”) on subsequent publication and career outcomes. To do so, we take advantage ofdata from structural biology where the nature of the scientific process together with the ProteinData Bank — a repository of standardized research discoveries — enables us to identify priorityraces and their outcomes. We find that race winners receive more attention than losers, butthat these contests are not winner-take-all. Scooped teams are 2.5 percent less likely to publish,are 18 percent less likely to appear in a top-10 journal, and receive 28 percent fewer citations.As a share of total citations, we estimate that scooped papers receive a credit share of 42percent. This is larger than the theoretical benchmark of zero percent suggested by classicmodels of innovation races. We conduct a survey of structural biologists which suggests thatactive scientists are more pessimistic about the cost of getting scooped than can be justifiedby the data. Much of the citation effect can be explained by journal placement, suggestingeditors and reviewers are key arbiters of academic priority. Getting scooped has only modesteffects on academic careers. Finally, we present a simple model of statistical discrimination inacademic attention to explain how the priority reward system reinforces inequality in science,and document empirical evidence consistent with our model. On the whole, these estimatesinform both theoretical models of innovation races and suggest opportunities to re-evaluate thepolicies and institutions that affect credit allocation in science.