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Concentration of Human Resources in Nanotechnology Centers: A Study on Creating Top Researchers

Investigating the impact of Nanotechnology Science and Engineering Centers (NSECs) in shaping highly ranked researchers. Analyzing citations, cohorts, and outcomes to evaluate contributions to NNI objectives. Methods include data extraction, author identification, field-level evaluations, and assessing publication impacts. The study reveals trends, ranking movements, and mechanisms influencing research performance in the nanotechnology field.

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Concentration of Human Resources in Nanotechnology Centers: A Study on Creating Top Researchers

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  1. Human Resource Concentration in Centers: Recruiting and Creating Highly Ranked Researchers Juan D. Rogers School of Public Policy Georgia Tech Project: Assessment of 15 Nanotechnology Science and Engineering Centers’ (NSECs): Outcomes and Impacts: Their Contribution to NNI Objectives and Goals, NSF 0955089.

  2. Objectives • Results from field level evaluation of NSEC program • Analysis of authors at field level and center level using citations as measure of excellence • Nanotechnology field cohorts from 1998 to 2006 • Center cohorts from 2001 to 2006 • Conclusions AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  3. Publication Data • Extraction and clean up (duplicate removal) of publication lists • Extraction of NSEC articles from Web of Science (~3,500 papers) • Field level nanotechnology cohorts from ongoing publication analysis (~300,000 papers) • Clean up, look up, identification, and matching of NSEC authors in author listings and citations for each author • Clean up and separation of individual authors and citations for each AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  4. Publications NSEC publication activity grows in three waves 2001-04 2005-06 2007-08 Notes: *Publication data not reported by all NSEC centers; last column reports average annual change for rows with change data. Source: ISI-WoS publication data based on NSEC annual reports by center. AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  5. Comparative Impact of NSEC Papers (Citations Cohort 2001) AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  6. Comparative Impact of NSEC Papers (Citations Cohort 2002) NSEC papers appear to have higher impact measured by citations: median and mean citations grow faster than the cohort with window length AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  7. Rank in Cohort of Top 20 NSEC Papers NSEC papers rank highly in their cohort of Nano papers. Total Cohort 2001: 30462 papers. NSEC Cohort 2001: 66 papers Total Cohort 2002: 34971 papers. NSEC Cohort 2002: 128 papers AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  8. Comparative Impact of NSEC Papers (Citations Cohort 2003) The distributions parameters show NSEC high position in the field but the top paper is still not by the centers. N = 40813 CN = 222 AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  9. Comparative Impact of NSEC Papers (Citations Cohort 2004) N = 48952; CN = 259 AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  10. Comparative Impact of NSEC Papers (Citations Cohort 2005) N = 55998; CN = 499 AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  11. Comparative Impact of NSEC Papers (Citations Cohort 2006) N = 62351; CN = 512 AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  12. What are the mechanisms leading to this performance? • The first impression is that centers are places of excellence and create the conditions for good work • Alternative hypotheses • People that are already doing good work before centers exist are later recruited to centers • Centers represent regrouping and concentration of existing human resources • Centers train young researchers to be stars • Center creation: 6 in 2001; 1 in 2002; 1 in 2003; 6 in 2004; 1 in 2006. AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  13. Method • Compiled list of individual authors for each cohort from 1998 to 2006 for the entire field of nanotechnology • Compiled cumulated citations at 2008 (and 2010) for each author • Same procedure for papers reported by NSECs • Matched names of NSEC authors to field level in each cohort AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  14. Method (continued) • Constructed “sliding window” of NSEC author appearance for NSEC cohorts 2001-2006 in each field level cohort 1998-2006 • Each cohort of papers at field level starting at 1998 is fixed reference • Each cohort of papers for all centers contrasted sequentially against the “fixed” field cohort • As the center cohorts “slide” the transition from field to center is detected AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  15. Field Cohort 1998 (top 100 by citation rank at 2010) AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  16. Field Cohort 1999 (top 100 by citation rank at 2010) AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  17. Field Cohort 2000 (top 100 by citation rank at 2010) AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  18. Field Cohort 2001 (top 100 by citation rank at 2010) AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  19. Field Cohort 2002 (top 100 by citation rank at 2010) AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  20. Field Cohort 2003 (top 100 by citation rank at 2010) AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  21. Field Cohort 2004 (top 100 by citation rank at 2010) AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  22. Field Cohort 2005 (top 100 by citation rank at 2010) AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  23. Field Cohort 2006 (top 100 by citation rank at 2010) AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  24. Publication and Author Counts Number of NSEC authors In above 100 Citations group Per cohort AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  25. Progression of Field Ranking Number of NSEC authors in ranked in top 100 by cumulative citations at 2010 For each field and center cohort AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  26. Method to Detect New “Stars” • Took each NSEC cohort from 2001 as fixed reference • Tracked authors for earlier field level cohorts starting at 1998 • Determined authors in field who had not published prior to doing so with NSEC • Reveals all authors new to the field through publishing as a member of an NSEC AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  27. New “Stars” Developed in NSECs Number of NSEC authors publishing for the first time in the field Number of first time author with more than 100 citations in first cohort AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

  28. Conclusions Implications for Center Policy • NSEC publication and citation growth rate is associated with two things: • Recruitment of leading scientists already having high impact on the field. • Development of novice researchers who are highly productive and have high impact • Successive waves of new centers: • Recruit more leading researchers that were not brought in by earlier centers. • Develop their own new “stars” • NSECs represent an obvious redistribution of human resources in the field with greater concentration in a few places. • At the same time they develop new “star quality” talent at a very impressive rate AEA 2012, Minneapolis MN

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