Title:
Scientists and Engineers in Academic Research Centers An Examination of Career Patterns and Productivity

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dc.contributor.advisor Bozeman, Barry
dc.contributor.author Dietz, James Scott en_US
dc.contributor.committeeMember Alan Porter
dc.contributor.committeeMember Kingsley, Gordon
dc.contributor.committeeMember Roessner, J. David
dc.contributor.committeeMember Sue Rosser
dc.contributor.department Public Policy en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2005-03-04T15:20:38Z
dc.date.available 2005-03-04T15:20:38Z
dc.date.issued 2004-03-03 en_US
dc.description.abstract Science policymakers and research evaluators are increasingly focusing on alternative methods of assessing the public investment in science and engineering research. Over the course of the last 20 years, scientific and engineering research centers with ties to industry have become a permanent fixture of the academic research landscape. Yet, much of the research on the careers patterns and productivity of researchers has focused on scientists rather than engineers, specific job changes rather than the career as a whole, and publication productivity measures rather than patent outcomes. Moreover, much of the extant research on academic researchers has focused exclusively on the academic component of careers. As universities increasingly take on roles than were once considered the responsibility of the private sectorsuch as securing patentsand build greater ties with industry, it is timely to reexamine the nature of the contemporary academic career. In this research, I draw on scientific and technical human capital theory to situate the central research question. Specifically, I examine the nature of the career pattern and publication and patent rates of scientists and engineers affiliated with federally-supported science and engineering research centers. The research makes use of curriculum vita (CV) data collected through the Research Value Mapping Program headquartered at the School of Public Policy. Tobit, Poisson, and Neural Network models are used in analyzing the data. In addition, I examine the career patterns of highly productive scholars and contrast those with less productive scholars. The findings suggest that the ways in which academic productivity and career patterns have been conceived may be in need of revision, with a greater attention to diverse productivity outcomes and diverse career patterns. Some of the interpretations of empirical findings in the literature may be misconceived. Moreover, it may be the case that postdoctoral fellowshipa common component of government support for scientific and engineering researchmay be associated with lower career productivity rates. This research contributes to our understanding of research careers with implications for public research policies. Finally, the relatively new method of analyzing CVs and appropriate modeling techniques and the challenges posed by this method are discussed. en_US
dc.description.degree Ph.D. en_US
dc.format.extent 534894 bytes
dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1853/5268
dc.language.iso en_US
dc.publisher Georgia Institute of Technology en_US
dc.subject Social capital en_US
dc.subject Sociology of science
dc.title Scientists and Engineers in Academic Research Centers An Examination of Career Patterns and Productivity en_US
dc.type Text
dc.type.genre Dissertation
dspace.entity.type Publication
local.contributor.corporatename School of Public Policy
local.contributor.corporatename Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication a3789037-aec2-41bb-9888-1a95104b7f8c
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication b1049ff1-5166-442c-9e14-ad804b064e38
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