Success in Science: How Global Prestige Organizes Careers

TL;DR

This study reveals that academic success is multidimensional but primarily centered on global publication prestige, with top international journal publications being most influential in scientists' careers.

Contribution

It combines survey and bibliometric data using advanced statistical methods to show that global publication prestige is the core of perceived academic success.

Findings

Global publication prestige is the central dimension of success.

Publishing in top international journals correlates strongly with other success indicators.

Publications in top national journals are less central and more peripheral.

Abstract

This article analyzes the structure of perceived academic success. We combine survey data from 10,848 Polish scientists with their Scopus bibliometric data at the individual level. We use polychoric correlations, exploratory factor analysis, network modeling (EBICglasso), and generalized linear mixed models in ordinal and binary forms. Our results show that academic success is multidimensional, with a clear core. This core is global publication prestige. Publishing in top international journals is the node with the highest centrality, and it is connected to other career dimensions, such as citations and international collaboration. Publications in top national journals, in contrast, are peripheral. The threshold structure of the scale indicates a selection effect. The definition of success is globally oriented and strongly tied to the hierarchy of international journals.