Counting stars: contribution of early career scientists to marine and fisheries sciences

Szymon Smolinski*, Daniel Ottmann, Okko Outinen, Amanda Schadeberg, Valentina Melli, Lara Funk, Come Denechaud, Alina Wieczorek, Alessandro Orio, Robert Mussgnug, Rasa Morkune, Emilie Hernes Vereide, Maja Zdulska, Genevieve Phillips, Fedor Lishchenko, Greta Srebaliene

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

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Abstract

Scientific careers and publishing have radically changed in recent decades creating an increasingly competitive environment for early career scientists (ECS). The lack of quantitative data available on ECS in marine and fisheries sciences prevents direct assessment of the consequences of increased competitiveness. We assessed the contributions of ECS (up to 6 years post first publication) to the field using an indirect approach by investigating the authorships of peer-reviewed articles. We analysed 118461 papers published by 184561 authors in the top 20 marine and fisheries sciences journals over the years 1991-2020. We identified a positive long-term trend in the proportion of scientific articles (co-)authored by ECS. This suggests a growing contribution by ECS to publications in the field. However, the mean proportion of ECS (co-)authors within one publication declined significantly over the study period. Subsequent tests demonstrated that articles with ECS (co-)authors receive fewer citations and that the proportion of ECS (co-)authors on an article has a significant negative effect on the number of citations. We discuss the potential causes of these inequalities and urge systematic support to ECS to achieve more balanced opportunities for funding and publishing between ECS and senior scientists.
Original languageEnglish
Article numberfsac187
JournalICES Journal of Marine Science
Volume79
Issue number9
Pages (from-to)2351-2361
Number of pages11
ISSN1054-3139
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Keywords

  • Bibliometrics
  • Early career researchers
  • Scientometrics
  • Scientific career
  • Scientific publishing

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