What Fraction of Astronomers Become Relatively Inactive in Research after Receiving Tenure?

Details What Fraction of Astronomers Become Relatively Inactive in Research after Receiving Tenure? What Fraction of Astronomers Become Relatively Inactive in Research after Receiving Tenure?

Apr 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996pasp..108..375a&link_type=abstract

Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, v.108, p.375

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

1

Astronomical Sociology

Scientific paper

We ask how many astronomers publish substantially fewer papers after receiving tenure than before and what are their characteristics that would have allowed us to predict their decreased productivity? This is answered by a study of 214 tenured astronomers at 17 of the major astronomical centers in the U.S. It is reassuring that 48% of the astronomers published more papers per year after receiving tenure than before and 33% published between half and the same number of papers per year as before tenure. Only 19% published less than half as many papers per year after tenure than before; among those, 1.8% published no first-author papers after receiving tenure, even though that occurred several decades ago in some cases. However the pre-tenure rates of publication and the current citations to those papers were not significantly different for the 19% less active researchers than for the remaining 81%. We found no numerical characteristics that allow one to predict who will become relatively inactive in research after receiving tenure. Those 19% do not favor any specific decade when they received tenure (1960s, 1970s, or 1980s) and they are well distributed among the 17 institutions. A few have heavy administrative responsibilities, but some others with at least as heavy responsibilities are among the most productive researchers after tenure. The 17 institutions averaged a constant number of new tenure assignments per year during 1970-1995. (SECTION: Astronomical Sociology)

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