Quality of Research and the Nobel Prizes

Abstract

Measurement of prestige in science is at best a crude process. However, over the past decade, ways of determining the degree of recognition of scientific work have been developed, and the correlation of recognition with other factors, such as the location and the prestige of the scientist's organization, have been considered. 1 This discussion is particularly interesting in regard to those who win the Nobel Prize, the most prestigious scientific award.'From the quantitative point of view, Nobel prizewinners have been studied chiefly with respect to their work patterns and publication practices.3 Their pre-and post-prize status has also been discussed qualitatively, since 'the prize literally assigns a new status to the laureates. The newly-crowned laureate is socially defined not only as a great man of science but also a celebrity and a sage.,4 In an anecdote reflecting this social attitude, Goughs describes a conference in which certain seats in a meeting hall were highly prized because of their proximity to the speaker. Occupants of these chairs who wanted to keep them in their possession after a brief departure from the hall had to mark them in some way, such as attaching a clipboard. However, the chairs of Nobel prizewinners attending the conference were never claimed by lesser mortals -no indication of ownership was necessary. The aura was apparently sufficient.Our object in this essay is to demonstrate quantitatively the differences in the perceived importance of the work of individuals in this Authors' address. Science Policy Branch,

Co-authorship networks and research impact: A social capital perspective

“…Prior studies have revealed that the work of prominent scholars, such as Nobel Prize laureates, tends to receive wide attention and high numbers of citations (Brown and Gardner, 1985;Inhaber and Przednowek, 1976). Based on this finding, we believe that when actors establish trustworthy relationships with prominent scholars and collaborate on research, their co-authored articles will attract more citations because the articles tend to be regarded as highquality work -the so-called "halo effect."…”

How to improve research quality? Examining the impacts of collaboration intensity and member diversity in collaboration networks

“…It indicates the degree to which a scholar's articles addresses concerns of other scholars. However, there are many limitations to the use of citations as a measure of quality (Brown and Gardner 1985;Inhaber and Przednowek 1976). One of these criticisms is that it is biased in favor of popular authors, such as the scientists who receive Nobel Prizes.…”

The drivers of citations in management science journals

“…As early as 1927, Gross (1927) suggested citations to evaluate researchers' work and then it was widely used to assess the status of academic departments and the quality of books and scientific journals (Garfield 1972;Nicolaisen 2002). As well as this, there is evidence to suggest that citations are correlated with other assessments of scientific influence or impact such as awards, honours (Inhaber and Przednowek 1976), departmental reputation (Hargens 2000) and academic rank (Cole and Cole 1971). The "Leiden methodology" (van Raan 2003;van Raan et al 2007), which evaluates research centres in terms of the mean citations per paper normalised against the field average, is being considered for the new Research Excellence Framework (REF) in the UK.…”