The World of Scientific Failure

Wang, Y., Jones, B.F. & Wang, D. Early-career setback and future career impact. Nat Commun 10, 4331 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12189-3

“Science is 99 percent failure, and that’s an optimistic view”, said a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, even though we don't always see it that way. We're not sure if early setbacks in a scientist's career help or hurt their future success. Some people think that early success leads to more success later on, but others believe that setbacks can actually make you stronger and more successful in the long run.

To figure this out, researchers looked at data from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and studied scientists who either barely got funding for their research (narrow wins) or just missed it (near misses). They focused on young scientists who had applied for grants in the last three years. By comparing these two groups, they tried to understand how early setbacks might affect their future success in terms of publishing papers and getting citations. They found 561 narrow wins and 623 near misses around the funding cutoff.

In simple terms, they're trying to see if failing early can lead to more success later in a scientist's career, and they used data from NIH grant applications to do it.

To understand the impact of early career setbacks on future success, scientists looked at the publication records of two groups of researchers: those who narrowly won research funding and those who just missed it from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). They focused on scientists who remained active in the NIH system and found that both groups published a similar number of research papers over the next ten years. However, when they looked at the quality of these papers, they discovered that near misses produced more "hit papers," which are highly cited papers, compared to narrow wins. In the first five years, 13.3% of narrow win papers were hits, while 16.1% of near-miss papers were hits. This trend continued in the following five-year period. Similar results were found when measuring paper impact using other methods, such as average citations and relative citation ratios. In short, scientists who faced early setbacks outperformed those who narrowly succeeded in terms of producing highly influential research papers.

It's surprising that the group of scientists who just missed out on NIH funding (near misses) performed better in their research, even though the group that narrowly won the funding initially had an advantage. We looked at how much funding these two groups received from the NIH over the next ten years. In the first five years, the near-miss group received less NIH funding, about $0.29 million less per person, which matches what other studies found. But in the next five years, this funding difference disappeared.

These findings show that over ten years, scientists who just missed out on funding initially received fewer grants compared to those who barely won funding. However, the surprising part is that the near-miss group published just as many research papers and, even more surprisingly, their work had a much bigger impact than the narrow-win group.

Now, to figure out if these differences were because of the early setbacks or if other factors were at play, an analysis was done. This analysis confirmed that an early career setback, like being a near miss, actually increased the chances of publishing important papers by 6.1% and getting more citations per paper by 34%. So, it's not just luck; facing challenges early in a scientific career can make you better in the long run.

Let's think about how to understand this discovery better.

The idea is that the people who survived the early setbacks (the near-miss group) might have had special qualities or skills right from the start that helped them succeed later on. This is like a filter that only lets certain people through.

They looked at how many scientists from each group kept working with the NIH after their early setbacks. They found that the near-miss group had more scientists who quit right after the setback, and this difference continued for a few years. Even in the seventh year, the gap was still there. Having an early setback increased the chance of a scientist leaving the NIH system by about 12.6% over the next ten years. This means that even though these scientists had training and research history, one early setback made them more likely to leave the NIH system.

In addition to looking at how often scientific papers are cited, which is a common way to measure success, they saw if the scientists who faced early setbacks did better in other ways too. They saw whether their work had a real impact on clinical and translational research, which means research that directly helps patients.

Scientists in the near-miss group were more likely to publish papers related to clinical trials, which directly contribute to medical advancements. They were also more likely to have their work cited by clinical trials, indirectly contributing to medical progress. Moreover, their research had a higher potential for translating scientific discoveries into real-world applications.

When scientists face setbacks early in their careers, it can have two very different effects. For some, it can be discouraging and harm their careers, but for others, it can actually make them stronger and more successful. While part of it could be due to natural circumstances, that doesn't explain everything. It seems like the scientists who bounce back from setbacks might be learning valuable lessons and showing a lot of determination. So, the takeaway here is that success isn't the only path to a great scientific career; overcoming setbacks can also lead to future success.

By Lia Lalkaka