English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Scientific discovery is shaped by scientists' choices and thus by theircareer patterns. The increasing knowledge required to work at the frontier ofscience makes it harder for an individual to embark on unexplored paths. Yetcollaborations can reduce learning costs -- albeit at the expense of increasedcoordination costs. In this article, we use data on the publication historiesof a very large sample of physicists to measure the effects of knowledge andsocial relatedness on their diversification strategies. Using bipartitenetworks, we compute a measure of topics similarity and a measure of socialproximity. We find that scientists' strategies are not random, and that theyare significantly affected by both. Knowledge relatedness across topicsexplains $\approx 10\%$ of logistic regression deviances and social relatednessas much as $\approx 30\%$, suggesting that science is an eminently socialenterprise: when scientists move out of their core specialization, they do sothrough collaborations. Interestingly, we also find a significant negativeinteraction between knowledge and social relatedness, suggesting that thefarther scientists move from their specialization, the more they rely oncollaborations. Our results provide a starting point for broader quantitativeanalyses of scientific diversification strategies, which could also be extendedto the domain of technological innovation -- offering insights from acomparative and policy perspective.

Knowledge and Social Relatedness Shape Research Portfolio Diversification