To academia or industry: Mobility and impact on ACM fellows’ scientific careers

Abstract

The movement of distinguished computer scientists, including ACM Fellows, serves as a pivotal mechanism for disseminating knowledge. This mobility facilitates significant knowledge spillovers that extend across various institutions, sectors, and even national borders. However, we know little about the mobility patterns of ACM fellows and how mobility affects their subsequent scientific careers. In this study, by tracing the mobility trajectories of nearly all ACM fellows elected between 1994 and 2022, and further employing a difference-in-differences design, we are then able to understand the evolving dynamics of the mobility networks among ACM Fellows and quantify the effects of different mobility paths on scientists’ productivity, collaborations, and citation impact. We find that institutional mobility among ACM fellows has seen a rapid increase since the 1970s, particularly in terms of inter-sectoral job transitions between elite universities and big tech corporations. Furthermore, different career mobility paths shape ACM fellows’ post-mobility scientific careers. Mobility paths to academia tend to bolster research collaboration and productivity, whereas leaving academia to industry decreases scientists’ collaborations and productivity yet rebounded following a move from industry to academia. Together, these results imply the changing structure of ACM fellows’ mobility networks over time and underscore the profound implications of mobility paths on their subsequent scientific careers.