On Wednesday, 9 December 2015 at 11:04:46 UTC, Tony wrote:
How are you defining "capitalizing"?
Climbing the ladder.
Many researchers don't want to climb the ladder (e.g. become head
of department or even group leader) because it means that they
spend 100% of their time on administration and none on research.
So you'll see effects like having the leadership being passed
around or being the result of peer pressure. Many already have
50% teaching, then a lot of overhead for
administration/supervision, so maybe the time left over for
actual research is 40% + spare time. Take any kind of leadership
role and the research time may be swallowed by "urgent issues".
Some researchers are also very conscious and probably spend more
than they should on teaching which further erode available time.
Another issue is that on the entry level research is more
individualistic, but higher up it pays off to be in the same area
as you colleges and being part of a community. So there are many
reasons for people with tenure to stick to a smaller research
area that they know well, but the bottomline is that if you only
have 3 months to produce a quality paper then you have to stay
specialized.
IMO, the most interesting papers are still published by
experienced researchers, only in the rare cases are their early
papers the most interesting.
