TY - JOUR
T1 - Early-career setback and future career impact
AU - Wang, Yang
AU - Jones, Benjamin F.
AU - Wang, Dashun
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank A.-L. Barabási, J. Chown, J. Evans, E. Finkel, V. Medvec, J. Loscalzo, W. Ocasio, P. Stephan, B. Uzzi, Y. Yin, and all members of Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO) for invaluable comments. This work is supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under award number FA9550-15-1-0162, FA9550-17-1-0089, and FA9550-19-1-0354, Northwestern University’s Data Science Initiative, the National Science Foundation grant SBE 1829344, and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Award G-2015-14014. This work does not reflect the position of NIH.
PY - 2019/12/1
Y1 - 2019/12/1
N2 - Setbacks are an integral part of a scientific career, yet little is known about their long-term effects. Here we examine junior scientists applying for National Institutes of Health R01 grants. By focusing on proposals fell just below and just above the funding threshold, we compare near-miss with narrow-win applicants, and find that an early-career setback has powerful, opposing effects. On the one hand, it significantly increases attrition, predicting more than a 10% chance of disappearing permanently from the NIH system. Yet, despite an early setback, individuals with near misses systematically outperform those with narrow wins in the longer run. Moreover, this performance advantage seems to go beyond a screening mechanism, suggesting early-career setback appears to cause a performance improvement among those who persevere. Overall, these findings are consistent with the concept that “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” which may have broad implications for identifying, training and nurturing junior scientists.
AB - Setbacks are an integral part of a scientific career, yet little is known about their long-term effects. Here we examine junior scientists applying for National Institutes of Health R01 grants. By focusing on proposals fell just below and just above the funding threshold, we compare near-miss with narrow-win applicants, and find that an early-career setback has powerful, opposing effects. On the one hand, it significantly increases attrition, predicting more than a 10% chance of disappearing permanently from the NIH system. Yet, despite an early setback, individuals with near misses systematically outperform those with narrow wins in the longer run. Moreover, this performance advantage seems to go beyond a screening mechanism, suggesting early-career setback appears to cause a performance improvement among those who persevere. Overall, these findings are consistent with the concept that “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” which may have broad implications for identifying, training and nurturing junior scientists.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-019-12189-3
DO - 10.1038/s41467-019-12189-3
M3 - Article
C2 - 31575871
AN - SCOPUS:85072848166
VL - 10
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
SN - 2041-1723
IS - 1
M1 - 4331
ER -