Work honored by Nobel prizes clusters heavily in a few scientific fields

Abstract

We aimed to assess whether Nobel prizes (widely considered the most prestigious award in science) are clustering in work done in a few specific disciplines. We mapped the key Nobel prize-related publication of each laureate awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine, Physics, and Chemistry (1995-2017). These key papers mapped in only narrow sub-regions of a 91,726-cluster map of science created from 63 million Scopus-indexed published items. For each key Nobel paper, a median of 435 (range 0 to 88383) other Scopus-indexed items were published within one year and were more heavily cited than the Nobel paper. Of the 114 high-level domains that science can be divided into, only 36 have had a Nobel prize. Five of the 114 domains (particle physics [14%], cell biology [12.1%], atomic physics [10.9%], neuroscience [10.1%], molecular chemistry [5.3%]) have the lion's share, accounting in total for 52.4% of the Nobel prizes. Using a more granular classification with 849 subdomains shows that only 71 of these sub-domains (8.3%) have at least one Nobel-related paper. Similar clustering was seen when we mapped all the 40,819 Scopus-indexed publications representing the career-long output of all the Nobel laureates. In conclusion, work resulting in Nobel prizes is concentrated in a small minority of scientific disciplines.

Large-scale analysis of delayed recognition using sleeping beauty and the prince

“…To check the relationship between SB–PR pairs and other impact indicators, we examine 133 key papers related to Nobel Prize-winning findings selected by (Ioannidis et al. 2020 ) within the dataset. The analysis reveals that there are seven SBs and six PRs in Prize-winning papers.…”

The Colombian scientific elite—Science mapping and a comparison with Nobel Prize laureates using a composite citation indicator

“…Second, recent work on the GSE concluded that the business of predicting the next Nobel had become a fruitless exercise since the laureates rank among the 500 most-cited authors after the 1970s compared to those awarded in the early twentieth century and their contributions have been limited to research niches rather than the discipline as a whole [ 22 ]. This was further refined by Ioannidis et al [ 7 ], who found that of the 114 domains investigated, only five (i.e., particle physics [14%], cell biology [12.1%], atomic physics [10.9%], neuroscience [10.1%], and molecular chemistry [5.3%]) accounted for 52.4% of the Nobel Prizes awarded. Taking a closer look at the features of the Nobelists’ papers, Zhou et al [ 54 ] estimated that 74.7% were cited more than 500 times, innovative research was more cited than theoretical and experimental methods, and most of the papers were published in journals with an Impact Factor between 5–10.…”

“…Despite the considerable research already undertaken, the above literature review exposes two major limitations. First, as noted by Zheng and Liu [ 18 ] and Ioannidis et al [ 7 ], further studies are needed that will incorporate other disciplines such as the social sciences and humanities. Second, since the study by Schlagberger et al [ 33 ] focused solely on US institutions, a broader landscape is needed to research institutions in developing countries.…”

The boundary-spanning mechanisms of Nobel Prize winning papers

“…By regressing the number of scientific prizes won by each winner on a set of variables, the authors found that the propensity of winning scientific prizes could be explained by a person’s university prestige, high h -index, and by the fact that they belonged to a prize-winning genealogical network. In a separate but related study [ 42 ], investigated if papers associated with Nobel Prizes in physics, medicine or chemistry between 1995 and 2017 were heavily clustered only in a handful disciplines. They found that only 5 out 114 fields of science accounted for more than half of the studied Nobel Prizes.…”