Is there a golden age in publication activity?—an analysis of age-related scholarly performance across all scientific disciplines

Balázs Győrffy (), Gyöngyi Csuka, Péter Herman and Ádám Török
Additional contact information
Balázs Győrffy: Semmelweis University
Gyöngyi Csuka: University of Pannonia
Péter Herman: Semmelweis University
Ádám Török: University of Pannonia

Scientometrics, 2020, vol. 124, issue 2, No 12, 1097 pages

Abstract: Abstract We examined whether the publication characteristics of various scientific disciplines exhibit age-related trends. Our analysis was based on two large data sets comprising all major scientific disciplines. Citation data for European Research Council grant holders (ERC, n = 756) were obtained from Google Scholar. Publication data for Hungarian researchers (HUN, n = 2469) were obtained from the Hungarian Scientific Work Archive. The evaluated performance parameters include the number of citations received and the number of high quality first/last author papers published in the last five years. We designated the time between maximum growth and the achieved maximal annual value of total citations as the Golden Age of a researcher. Regarding citation growth, the mean age at the highest growth was 41.75 and 41.53 years for ERC grantees and Hungarian researchers, respectively. Each discipline had different values, with mathematics (38.5 years, ERC) and biology (34.7 years, HUN) having the youngest mean age of highest citation growth and agriculture (45.2 years, ERC) and language sciences (49.9 years, HUN) having the oldest mean age. The maximal growth of publications occurred at 44.5 years, with physics starting first (40.5 years, HUN) and language sciences as last (51.4 years, HUN). Most academic careers require decades to reach their peak and the length of the period of maximum performance varies across disciplines. The most creative time period is rising and is currently in the second half of the forties. Identifying the Golden Age in diverse research careers may be of substantial help in the distribution of grants and tenure positions.

Keywords: Scientific performance; Citation; ERC; HSWA; Scientific discipline (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-020-03501-w Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:scient:v:124:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-020-03501-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11192

DOI: 10.1007/s11192-020-03501-w

Access Statistics for this article

Scientometrics is currently edited by Wolfgang Glänzel

More articles in Scientometrics from Springer, Akadémiai Kiadó
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().