How Science Can Boost Science Careers
A growing community of scientists is using scientific methods to study themselves and to dissect innovation patterns
By Paula Klein
Can scientific advancements also advance the field of science? It’s a provocative question being studied by Associate Professor Dashun Wang and his team at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.
Wang shared his research on the Science of Science at a recent MIT IDE seminar. His work turns the tools of scientific methods and curiosity inward, “hoping to use and develop tools from complexity sciences and artificial intelligence to broadly explore the opportunities for innovation and promises of prosperity,” he said.
“Parallel developments in data science, network science, and AI offer us powerful tools and techniques to make sense of millions of data points. Together, they tell an insightful story about how scientific careers unfold, how collaborations contribute to discovery, and how scientific progress emerges.”
Wang described a growing, multidisciplinary community of scientists who use scientific methods to study themselves, and to examine projects that work as well as those that fail. If they can quantify the patterns that characterize discovery and invention, they hope to improve science as a whole.
Winning Streaks Span Careers
One aspect of Wang’s work examines the pace and patterns of scientific research over the course of a career. For instance, while conventional wisdom says that most ‘breakthroughs’ come mid-career, his research indicates that high-quality “hits” and “winning streaks” can occur throughout a career, but they do come in sequences and clusters. “Streaks occur randomly in a career,” Wang said, but they may last four to five years before leveling off. Typically, productivity is not greater at these times, but the quality of the work may be better.
In order to operationalize and exploit these work patterns, Wang studied several explanations of success including serendipity, collaboration, exploitation, and exploration. For comparison, the research analyzed data in non-science fields, such as the work patterns of artists and filmmakers, and concluded that a combination of experimentation and exploration, followed by exploitation, is needed for hot streaks to flourish in each of the fields.
In a related study, Wang found that while collaborative work is increasing at many corporations, large teams may not be optimal for discovery; they tend to develop ideas, but small teams are more likely to thrive and disrupt the status quo.
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For more:
On the Science of Science, see https://hbr.org/2018/10/research-career-hot-streaks-can-happen-at-any-age ; https://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6408/1194
On teams and collaboration, see https://hbr.org/2019/02/research-when-small-teams-are-better-than-big-ones
