Is Novelty in Science a Distracting Obsession?
In a survey of over 1,500 scientists, more than 70 percent of them reported having been unable to reproduce other scientists’ findings at least once. Roughly half of the surveyed scientists ran into problems trying to reproduce their own results. No wonder people are talking about a “reproducibility crisis” in scientific research...
What (social) Factors Make For an Innovative Researcher?
One might ask why researchers go to the effort of undertaking unconventional, path-breaking work? What makes some scientists more likely to engage in research that breaks from tradition, despite the risks? In our recent study, we considered two possible explanations. First, we thought that scholars affiliated with high-status demographic...
PhD Students Should Prepare for Careers Outside Academia
Those who do finish their PhDs face a highly competitive academic employment market, as the number of annual PhD graduates exceeds the number of available academic openings in all but a few specialized areas of study. Universities are increasingly aware of this imbalance. But their responses are slow and uneven. Our research helps to explain why, and we argue that PhD students must take their own initiative to prepare for diverse career outcomes.