What is an Academic Footprint?

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Conceptualizing scientific success in terms of an academic footprint.
Posted On: February 20, 2019
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Conceptualizing scientific success in terms of an academic footprint. Image courtesy of: https://www.goodfreephotos.com/other-photos/footprints-en-el-sand.jpg.php

By: Shabana Amanda Ali, ORT Times Writer

The success of a scientist has traditionally been defined in a very specific way: publishing in high-impact journals, being invited to present at international conferences and receiving prestigious research awards. The lab of a successful scientist may consist largely of postdoctoral fellows or research associates in order to maintain a high level of productivity. Their projects are often seen as significant contributions that advance the scientific field, and may focus on elucidating foundational insights or on translating discoveries to improve quality of life.

While these are all highly regarded accomplishments in the scientific field, is there more to scientific success? Does this narrow definition exclude other ‘successful’ scientists? Are there other ways to capture the impact and legacy of an individual scientist given their multifaceted roles and responsibilities? Consider the concept of the academic footprint, which can be defined as the broader impact of an individual’s scientific contribution. This footprint is not limited to the number of citations received, but also includes the ability to mentor trainees in scientific career progression, and the direct or indirect translation of research findings to societal betterment.

Publication impact: the h-index

The h-index takes into account the number of publications and the number of citations per publication a scientist has received. To calculate it, all of an individual’s publications are sorted from the highest number of citations to the lowest. Consider a set of five publications numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, with corresponding citations of 75, 32, 12, 7 and 3, respectively. The h-index is the last publication number that is lower than the corresponding citations. In this case, publication number 4 is the last publication that has a greater number of citations (ie, 7), so the individual would have an h-index of 4. Despite the limitations of the h-index, it is one way to gauge the impact of a particular scientist and to determine their influence on the field. One advantage of the h-index is that publications in lower-impact journals are evaluated based on the number of citations received, rather than the caliber of the journal in which they are published.

Trainee mentorship

In a competitive research environment, it may be tempting to build a lab with highly skilled research personnel, but among scientists’ responsibilities is the training of the next generation of scientists. This requires an investment of time, resources and mentorship; however, incentive for this may be lacking because most institutions do not directly assess mentorship. Mentorship capabilities are often overlooked and undervalued, and this may deter busy scientists from developing or applying their mentorship skills. The ability of a principal investigator to guide untrained students towards science careers should be taken as a marker of their own investment and an important part of advancing the scientific field.

Research translation

To be impactful, scientific findings must be placed into the broader context of their respective fields. Research translation is only possible when findings have sound foundations, demonstrated consistency and peer-reviewed acceptance. Collaboration among scientists facilitates progress towards these goals, and maximizes the impact of research funding. Rather than doubling efforts, competing to work on similar concepts and constantly fear being ‘scooped’, research findings should be regularly and consistently placed into the broader context. Negative results should not be dismissed as unpublishable and findings should not be tightly guarded until publication. While still controversial, preprint versions of scientific manuscripts now offer an avenue to disseminate findings and receive feedback before the formal and lengthy process of peer-reviewed publication.

These three concepts begin to describe an academic footprint that is multifaceted in nature. An academic footprint will never be the same for any two scientists, so expanding our collectively held definition of scientific success is a step in the right direction.