Scientific creativity patterns in scholars’ academic careers: Evidence from PubMed

Abstract

Scientific creativity is a key aspect of scientific advancement and academic career success. This study investigated the patterns of scholars’ scientific creativity, represented by the evolution of the disruption index (D index) of the scholars’ papers throughout their careers. We constructed a time-series dataset of 10,049 scholars with 779,190 corresponding articles published from 1965 to 2015. The dynamic time warping algorithm and the K-medoids were used to identify two overall scientific creativity patterns: “flat” and “peak.” The “peak” pattern was further identified as four sub-clusters: “high peak,” “moderate peak,” “low peak,” and “early peak.” The findings showed that both male and female scholars exhibited the “high peak” pattern, with a small number of females showing the “early peak” pattern in their careers. In addition, scholars from top-tier universities showed the “high peak” and “early peak” patterns in their careers, while scholars from mid-tier or low-tier universities displayed the “early peak” and “flat” patterns. Our findings enrich the typology of scientific creativity patterns and provide a basis for policymakers to establish and improve performance evaluation systems.