Unproductive Young Scientists? No Chance to Become Highly Productive in the Future (Analysis of 320 000 Scientific Careers in 38 OECD Countries)

Abstract

In this paper, we show that already at a relatively early stage of a scientific career, the distribution of  productivity within the global scientific profession at its two extremes (the top 10% and the bottom 10%) is largely fixed. This initial distribution persists over time, over years and decades. The least productive scientists almost never become the most productive, and the most productive scientists almost never become the least productive. The persistence of membership in the highest and lowest productivity classes from the perspective of the life cycle of scientists is striking. Our study shows that the global science system
is extremely rigid in terms of productivity distribution.