Researching deeply or broadly? The effects of scientists’ research strategies on disruptive performance over their careers

Abstract

The research strategies scientists use can affect the efficiency and direction of scientific discovery. This study focuses on the relationships between scientists’ knowledge breadth and depth strategies and disruptive performance as well as the role career age plays in these relationships. The data were from 651,831 publications authored by 12,278 biomedical scientists from the PubMed Knowledge Graph (PKG) dataset. The two main findings are as follows: (1) U-shaped correlations were found between scientists’ knowledge breadth, depth, and disruptive performance; and (2) career age influences the relationship between knowledge depth and disruptive performance, with different impacts across various stages of a scientist's career. The findings imply that future research must consider the key role scientists’ career age plays in the relationship between research strategies and scientific performance.