Skip to main content

Marek Kwiek

Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Center for Public Policy Studies, Faculty Member

Followers

228

Following

324

Co-authors

4

Public Views

My research area is quantitative studies of science, sociology of science and higher education research. My focus is on international research collaboration, academic productivity, stratification in science, global academic elites, and I use global bibliometric datasets and large-scale international surveys. My recent monograph is "Changing European Academics. A Comparative Study of Social Stratification, Work Patterns and Research Productivity" (Routledge 2019). I have been advising extensively national governments and international organizations on university funding and governance and I authored more than 230 publications.
Address: Center for Public Policy Studies, Director
ul. Szamarzewskiego 89
60-569 Poznan
Poland

kwiekm@amu.edu.pl
www.cpp.amu.edu.pl

less

InterestsView All (11)

Uploads

Papers by Marek Kwiek

Using large-scale bibliometric data in higher education research: Methodological implications from three studies

by Marek Kwiek and Justin J.W. Powell

Higher Education Quarterly, 2024

All fields of knowledge are challenged to adopt newer, more sophisticated methodologies to cope w... more All fields of knowledge are challenged to adopt newer, more sophisticated methodologies to cope with growing complexity. Phenomena under study require further multidisciplinary and mixed methods collaborations to achieve expertise able to improve research strategies and practices. Furthermore, traditional methodological approaches face limits to their
analytical reach. Here, we demonstrate opportunities from adopting newer, more sophisticated methodologies in the field of higher education (HE) research by comparing three case studies. We argue that such methods and data innovate the mapping and understanding of global HE. These
studies uncover novel field characterizations, enabled via analysis of tens of thousands of HE authors and articles over several decades to assess how journal publication, topics, and levels of analysis (individual, organizational, and system) have evolved. Our results imply that to better understand the future of HE worldwide and to address growing challenges,
newer methodological directions and data sources will be key to facilitate more comprehensive examinations of the globalizing field. However, our analysis also highlights the technical and learning challenges in implementing these methodologies; thus, we argue for the need to promote more sophisticated methodological training of current and
future generations of HE researchers as well as strengthened
collaborations across disciplinary, methodological, and cultural boundaries.

Academic top earners. Research productivity, prestige generation, and salary patterns in European universities

Science and Public Policy, 2017

This article examines highly paid academics-or top earners-employed across universities in ten Eu... more This article examines highly paid academics-or top earners-employed across universities in ten European countries based on large-scale international survey data regarding the academic profession. It examines the relationships between salaries and academic behaviors and productivity, as well as the predictors of becoming an academic top earner. While, in the Anglo-Saxon countries, the university research mission typically pays off at an individual level, in Continental Europe, it pays off only in combination with administrative and related duties. Seeking future financial rewards solely through research does not seem to be a viable strategy in Europe, but seeking satisfaction in research through solving research puzzles is also becoming difficult, with the growing emphasis on the 'relevance' and 'applicability' of fundable research. Thus, both the traditional 'investment motivation' and 'consumption motivation' to perform research decrease, creating severe policy implications. The primary data come from 8,466 usable cases.

Znikający naukowcy. Co ustrukturyzowane Big Data mówią nam o rezygnacji z nauki w 38 krajach OECD

Nauka 1/2024, 23-52, 2024

W pracy analizujemy zjawisko rezygnacji z nauki akademickiej i pokazujemy jak odchodzenie z nauki... more W pracy analizujemy zjawisko rezygnacji z nauki akademickiej i pokazujemy jak odchodzenie z nauki różni się między kobietami i mężczyznami, dyscyplinami akademickimi i na przestrzeni czasu. Prezentowane podejście jest kompleksowe: globalne, oparte na kohortach naukowców i podłużne – obserwujemy działalność publikacyjną indywidualnych naukowców w czasie. Korzystając z metadanych pochodzących z bazy Scopus – globalnej bibliometrycznej bazy danych publikacji i cytowań – analizujemy kariery publikacyjne naukowców z 38 krajów OECD, którzy rozpoczęli publikowanie w 2000 r. (N=142 776) i w 2010 r. (N=232 843). W pracy przetestowano przydatność dużych zbiorów danych bibliometrycznych do globalnych analiz karier naukowych.

Quantifying Lifetime Productivity Changes: A Longitudinal Study of 320,000 Late-Career Scientists

Preprint at SocArXiv, 2024

The present study focuses on persistence in research productivity over the course of an individua... more The present study focuses on persistence in research productivity over the course of an individual’s entire scientific career. We track “late-career” scientists—scientists with at least 25 years of publishing experience (N=320,564)—in 16 STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine) and social science disciplines from 38 OECD countries for up to five decades. Our OECD sample includes 79.42% of late-career scientists globally. We examine the details of their mobility patterns as early-career, mid-career, and late-career scientists between decile-based productivity classes, from the bottom 10% to top 10% of the productivity distribution. Methodologically, we turn a large-scale bibliometric dataset (Scopus raw data) into a comprehensive, longitudinal data source for research on careers in science. The global science system is highly immobile: half of global top performers continue their careers as top performers and one-third of global bottom performers as bottom performers. Jumpers-Up and Droppers-Down are extremely rare in science. The chances of moving radically up or down in productivity classes are marginal (1% or less). Our regression analyses show that productivity classes are highly path dependent: there is a single most important predictor of being a top performer, which is being a top performer at an earlier career stage.

Quantifying Attrition in Science: A Cohort-Based, Longitudinal Study of Scientists in 38 OECD Countries

Higher Education, 2024

In this paper, we explore how members of the scientific community leave academic science and how ... more In this paper, we explore how members of the scientific community leave academic science and how attrition (defined as ceasing to publish) differs across genders, academic disciplines, and over time. Our approach is cohort-based and longitudinal: We track individual male and female scientists over time and quantify the phenomenon traditionally referred to as “leaving science.” Using publication metadata from Scopus—a global bibliometric database of publications and citations—we follow the details of the publishing careers of scientists from 38 OECD countries who started publishing in 2000 (N = 142,776) and 2010 (N = 232,843). Our study is restricted to 16 STEMM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine), and we track the individual scholarly output of the two cohorts until 2022. We use survival analysis to compare attrition of men and women scientists. With more women in science and more women within cohorts, attrition is becoming ever less gendered. In addition to the combined aggregated changes at the level of all STEMM disciplines, widely nuanced changes were found to occur at the discipline level and over time. Attrition in science means different things for men versus women depending on the discipline; moreover, it means different things for scientists from different cohorts entering the scientific workforce. Finally, global bibliometric datasets were tested in the current study, opening new opportunities to explore gender and disciplinary differences in attrition.

Are Scientists Changing their Research Productivity Classes When They Move up the Academic Ladder?

Innovative Higher Education, 2024

We approach productivity in science in a longitudinal fashion: We track scientists’ careers over ... more We approach productivity in science in a longitudinal fashion: We track scientists’ careers over time, up to 40 years. We first allocate scientists to decile-based publishing productivity classes, from the bottom 10% to the top 10%. Then, we seek patterns of mobility between the classes in two career stages: assistant professorship and associate professorship. Our findings confirm that radically changing publishing productivity levels (upward or downward) almost never happens. Scientists with a very weak past track record in publications emerge as having marginal chances of becoming scientists with a very strong future track record across all science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) fields. Hence, our research shows a long-term character of careers in science, with one’s publishing productivity during the apprenticeship period of assistant professorship heavily influencing productivity during the more independent period of associate professorship. We use individual-level microdata on academic careers (from a national registry of scientists) and individual-level metadata on publications (from the Scopus raw dataset). Polish associate professors tend to be stuck in their productivity classes for years: High performers tend to remain high performers, and low performers tend to remain low performers over their careers. Logistic regression analysis powerfully supports our two-dimensional results. We examine all internationally visible Polish associate professors in five fields of science in STEMM fields (N = 4,165 with Nart = 71,841 articles).

Once Highly Productive, Forever Highly Productive? Full Professors’ Research Productivity from a Longitudinal Perspective

Higher Education, 2024

This longitudinal study explores persistence in research productivity over time. We examine the t... more This longitudinal study explores persistence in research productivity over time. We examine the trajectories of the academic careers of 2,326 current full professors in 14 STEMM disciplines, studying their lifetime biographical histories and publication histories. Every full professor is compared in terms of productivity classes (top, middle, bottom) with their peers at earlier career stages. We used prestige-normalized productivity in which more weight is given to articles in high-impact than in low-impact journals, recognizing the highly stratified nature of academic science. Our results show that membership in top productivity classes is to a large extent determined by being in these classes earlier. Half of the current top productive full professors belonged to top productivity classes throughout their academic careers. Half of the top productive assistant professors continued as top productive associate professors, and half of the top productive associate professors continued as top productive full professors (52.6% and 50.8%). Top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top transitions in productivity classes occurred marginally. The combination of biographical and demographic data with raw Scopus publication data from the past 50 years (N=1 million) made it possible to assign all full professors retrospective to different productivity, promotion age, and promotion speed classes. In logistic regression models, two powerful predictors of belonging to the top productivity class for full professors were being highly productive as assistant professors and as associate professors (increasing the odds by 180% and 360%). Neither gender nor age (biological or academic) emerged as statistically significant. Hiring both low-productivity and high-productivity scientists may have long-standing consequences for institutions and the national science system: after entering the system and achieving job stability, scientists in Poland (where attrition is low) usually remain in the system for years, if not decades.

Top Research Performance Over Three Decades: A Multidimensional Micro-Data Approach

SocArXiv preprint, 2024

In this research, the contributions of a highly productive minority of scientists to the national... more In this research, the contributions of a highly productive minority of scientists to the national Polish research output over the past three decades (1992–2021) is explored. In almost all previous research, the approaches to high research productivity are missing the time component. Cross-sectional studies were not complemented by longitudinal studies: Scientists comprising the classes of top performers have not been tracked over time. Three classes of top performers (the upper 1%, 5%, and 10%) are examined, and a surprising temporal stability of productivity patterns is found. The 1/10 and 10/50 rules consistently apply across the three decades: The upper 1% of scientists, on average, account for 10% of the national output, and the upper 10% account for almost 50% of total output, with significant disciplinary variations. The Relative Presence Index (RPI) we constructed shows that men are overrepresented and women underrepresented in all top performers classes. Top performers are studied longitudinally through their detailed publishing histories, with micro-data coming from the raw Scopus dataset. Econometric models identify the three most important predictors that change the odds ratio estimates of membership in the top performance classes: gender, academic age, and research collaboration. The downward trend in fixed effects over successive six-year periods indicates increasing competition in academia. A large population of all internationally visible Polish scientists (N=152,043) with their 587,558 articles is studied. Implications for high-productivity studies are shown, and limitations are discussed.

What Large-Scale Publication and Citation Data Tell Us About International Research Collaboration in Europe: Changing National Patterns in Global Contexts

Studies in Higher Education, 2021

This study analyzes the unprecedented growth of international research collaboration (IRC) in Eur... more This study analyzes the unprecedented growth of international research collaboration (IRC) in Europe during the period 2009–2018 in terms of co-authorship and citation distribution of globally indexed publications. The results reveal the dynamics of this change, as growing IRC moves European science systems away from institutional collaboration, with stable and strong national collaboration. Domestic output has remained flat. The growth in publications in major European systems is almost entirely attributable to internationally co-authored papers. A comparison of trends within the four complementary collaboration modes clearly reveals that the growth of European science is driven solely by internationally co-authored papers. With the emergence of global network science, which diminishes the role of national policies in IRC and foregrounds the role of scientists, the individual scientist's willingness to collaborate internationally is central to advancing IRC in Europe. Scientists collaborate internationally when it enhances their academic prestige, scientific recognition, and access to research funding, as indicated by the credibility cycle, prestige maximization, and global science models. The study encompassed 5.5 million Scopus-indexed articles, including 2.2 million involving international collaboration.

Internationalists and Locals: International Research Collaboration in Resource- Poor Systems

Scientometrics, 2020

The principal distinction drawn in this study is between research "internationalists" and "locals... more The principal distinction drawn in this study is between research "internationalists" and "locals," the former being scientists involved in international research collaboration while the latter are not. These two distinct types compete for academic prestige and professional recognition, research funding, and international recognition in science. As a clearly defined subgroup of Polish scientists (51.4%), internationalists are a different academic species. They are predominantly male and older; they have longer academic experience and higher academic degrees, and they occupy higher academic positions. Internationalists co-author internationally six times more often than locals. Across all academic clusters, internationalists consistently produce more than 90% of internationally co-authored publications: no international collaboration means no internationally co-authored publications. Internationalists are much more productive in terms of internationally co-authored publications: 2,320% of the productivity of locals for peer-reviewed articles and 1,600% for peer-reviewed article equivalents. For English language peer-reviewed articles, the figure is 290.9%, and for article equivalents, it is 276.5%. They are also about 70% more productive in terms of conference papers and about 50% more productive in terms of peer-reviewed articles, article equivalents, and books. Internationalists tend to spend less time than locals on teaching-related activities, more time on research, and more time on administrative duties. Finally, the multivariate analyses identified some new predictors of international research collaboration. Based on a large-scale academic survey (N = 3,704 returned questionnaires) of Poland's resource-poor higher education system, this study has global implications for academic career, productivity patterns, and internationalization policies.

The Prestige Economy of Higher Education Journals: A Quantitative Approach

Higher Education, 2021

This study addresses stratification in the global higher education research community and the cha... more This study addresses stratification in the global higher education research community and the changing geography of country affiliations in the six elite journals. Full-and part-timers are contrasted, and the distribution of country affiliations is analyzed from a longitudinal perspective. The findings indicate that about 3.3% of academics publishing in elite and core journals have authored at least 5 articles; these constitute the publishing core of the research community while the eight in ten who have authored one article constitute its periphery. Higher Education and Studies in Higher Education emerge as global elite journals, with an increasing share of non-Anglo-Saxon authors. Global trends include the diminishing role of American researchers and the increasing role of researchers from Continental Europe and East Asia. The prestige maximization model and principal-agent theory provide the theoretical framework for the study, which examines 6,334 articles published in the six elite journals during the period 1996-2018 in the context of 21,442 articles in 41 core journals.

The Globalization of Science: The Increasing Power of Individual Scientists

The Oxford Handbook of Education and Globalization. Edited by Paola Mattei, Xavier Dumay, Eric Mangez & Jacqueline Behrend. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023

National science systems have become embedded in global science and countries do everything they ... more National science systems have become embedded in global science and countries do everything they can to harness global knowledge to national economic needs. However, accessing and using the riches of global knowledge can occur only through scientists. Consequently, the research power of nations relies on the research power of individual scientists. Their capacity to collaborate internationally and to tap into the global networked science is key. The constantly evolving, bottom-up, autonomous, self-regulating, and self-focused nature of global science requires deeper understanding; and the best way to understand its dynamics is to understand what drives academic scientists in their work. We are particularly interested in the contrast between global science as a largely privately governed and normatively self-regulating institution and global science as a contributor to global collective public goods. The idea that science remains a state-driven rather than curiosity-driven is difficult to sustain. In empirical terms, we describe the globalization of science using selected publication, collaboration, and citation data from 2000-2020. The globalization of science implies two different processes in two different system types: the growth of science in the Western world is almost entirely attributable to internationally co-authored publications; its growth in the developing world, in contrast, is driven by both internationally co-authored and domestic publications. Global network science opens incredible opportunities to new arrivals—countries as well as institutions and research teams. The global system is embedded in the rules created by scientists themselves and maintained as a self-organizing system and nation-states have another major level to consider in their science policies: the global level. Globalization of science provides more agency, autonomy, collegiality, and self-regulation to scientists embedded in national science structures and involved in global networks.

Are Female Scientists Less Inclined to Publish Alone? The Gender Solo Research Gap

Scientometrics, 2022

Solo research is a result of individual authorship decisions which accumulate over time, accompan... more Solo research is a result of individual authorship decisions which accumulate over time, accompanying academic careers. This research is the first to comprehensively study the "gender solo research gap" within a whole national system: We examine the gap through "individual publication portfolios" constructed for each internationally visible Polish university professor. Solo research is a special case of academic publishing where scientists compete individually, sending clear signals about their research ability. Solo research has been expected to disappear for half a century, but it continues to exist. Our focus is on how male and female scientists of various biological ages, age groups, academic positions, institutions, and institutional types make use of, and benefit from, solo publishing. We tested the hypothesis that male and female scientists differ in their use of solo publishing, and we termed this difference "the gender solo research gap". The highest share of solo research for both genders is noted for middle-aged scientists working as associate professors rather than for young scientists as in previous studies. The low journal prestige level of female solo publications may suggest women's propensity to choose less competitive publication outlets. In our unique biographical, administrative, publication, and citation database ("Polish Science Observatory"), we have metadata on all Polish scientists present in Scopus (N = 25,463) and on their 158,743 Scopus-indexed articles published in 2009-2018, including 18,900 solo articles.

The young and the old, the fast and the slow: a large-scale studyof productivity classes and rank advancement

Studies in Higher Education, Nov 3, 2023

We examined a large sample of Polish science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine ... more We examined a large sample of Polish science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) scientists (N = 16,083) to study rank advancement and productivity in the past 40 years. We used two previously neglected time dimensions – promotion age and promotion speed – to construct individual lifetime biographical and publication profiles. We followed a classificatory approach and the new methodological approach of journal prestige–normalized productivity. All scientists were allocated to different productivity, promotion age, and promotion speed classes (top 20%, middle 60%, and bottom 20%). The patterns found were consistent across all disciplines: scientists in young promotion age classes (and fast promotion speed classes) in the past were currently the most productive. In contrast, scientists in old promotion age classes (and slow promotion speed classes) in the past were currently the least productive. In the three largest disciplines, the young-old promotion age productivity differential for associate professors was 100–200% (150–200% for full professors), and the fast-slow promotion speed productivity differential for associate professors was 80–150% (100–170% for full professors). Our results were partly supported by a regression analysis in which we examined odds ratio estimates of belonging to top productivity classes. To examine the sample, we combined biographical and demographic data collected from the national register of all Polish scientists and publication metadata on all Polish articles indexed in Scopus (N = 935,167).

Once Highly Productive, Forever Highly Productive? Full Professors’ Research Productivity from a Longitudinal Perspective

Higher Education, 2024

This longitudinal study explores persistence in research productivity at the individual level ove... more This longitudinal study explores persistence in research productivity at the individual level over academic lifetime: can highly productive scientists maintain relatively high levels of productivity. We examined academic careers of 2326 Polish full professors, including their lifetime biographical and publication histories. We studied their promotions and publications between promotions (79,027 articles) over a 40-year period across 14 science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) disciplines. We used prestige-normalized productivity in which more weight is given to articles in high-impact than in low-impact journals, recognizing the highly stratified nature of academic science. Our results show that half of the top productive assistant professors continued as top productive associate professors, and half of the top productive associate professors continued as top productive full professors (52.6% and 50.8%). Top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top transitions in productivity classes occurred only marginally. In logistic regression models, two powerful predictors of belonging to the top productivity class for full professors were being highly productive as assistant professors and as associate professors (increasing the odds, on average, by 179% and 361%). Neither gender nor age (biological or academic) emerged as statistically significant. Our findings have important implications for hiring policies: hiring high- and low-productivity scientists may have long-standing consequences for institutions and national science systems as academic scientists usually remain in the system for decades. The Observatory of Polish Science (100,000 scientists, 380,000 publications) and Scopus metadata on 935,167 Polish articles were used, showing the power of combining biographical registry data with structured Big Data in academic profession studies.

Global Vertical Stratification of Institutions and the Academic Profession: The Role of Research in Future High Participation Environments

From Actors to Reforms in (Higher) Education. Festschrift for Pavel Zgaga. Edited by M. Klemencic, 2022

The research-induced global vertical stratification of higher education institutions seems to be... more The research-induced global vertical stratification of higher education institutions
seems to be accompanied by the ongoing vertical differentiation of the academic
profession. Both processes can be expected to intensify. The various segments of
the profession and components of higher education systems have been drifting
apart. A general contrast has emerged between the haves and have-nots in terms of
working conditions and attractiveness of the academic profession at the individual
level, and the global visibility in league tables and access to national research
funding at the institutional level. The processes of the concentration of research in
selected institutions may have a powerful impact on academic lives and careers.
The attractiveness of the academic profession and workplace is at stake, especially
in those institutions that are not going to be research-intensive and will be
predominantly teaching-focused. The basic assumption of this scenario is that in
massified systems, the traditional teaching-research nexus will be maintained in
practice almost exclusively in the small elite sub-sector. The opportunities at the
disposal of institutions will vary immensely in the future, but most importantly,
qualitative distinction will be between the top 1,000 universities and the rest
(comprising about 25,000–30,000 institutions). This chapter is an exercise in future
scenarios writing, in which the radical consequences of the divisive impact of
academic research on individuals and institutions in 20–30 years are discussed.

Central European Higher Education and Global Pressures: The Three Aspects of Globalization

The Academic Workplace Country Report Poland

The changes in recent decade in Poland have been dramatic, for all professions and all workplaces... more The changes in recent decade in Poland have been dramatic, for all professions and all workplaces, including those in the academy. Apparently, transformations in the academy have been much less radical and prolonged in time; higher education systems cannot be changed overnight, and the fact became obvious after the new law on higher education was adopted in Poland in 1990, and then, despite numerous attempts, it was not followed by further major legal changes until the present (2003).

International Research Collaboration and International Research Orientation: Comparative Findings About European Academics

Journal of Studies in International Education, 2018

In this study, international research collaboration (IRC) and international research orientation ... more In this study, international research collaboration (IRC) and international research orientation (IRO) have been studied at the micro-level of individual academics from the university sector (N = 8,466, 11 European systems). Both were studied cross-nationally, cross-disciplinarily, and cross-generationally. This study differs from most existing internationalization literature in its sample (Europe) and focus (patterns of internationalization in research), using more standard methods (a multivariate model approach). It addresses questions about the patterns of IRC and IRO, international publishing, and the predictors of IRC, or what makes some European academics more prone to collaborating with international colleagues in research than others. In the context of changing incentive and reward systems in European academic science, which are becoming more output oriented, it is ever more important for individual academics to cooperate internationally (as well as to co-publish internationally). “Internationalists” increasingly compete with “locals” in university hierarchies of prestige and for access to project-based research funding across Europe. Evidence is presented that co-authoring publications internationally is still a rare form of research internationalization in Europe (50.8% of academics co-author publications internationally). However, as compared with other world regions, the percentage of European academics collaborating internationally in research (63.8%) is very high. A striking cross-national differential within the youngest European generation of academics was found, which may be a strong barrier to intra-European research collaboration in the future.

The Two Decades of Privatization in Polish Higher Education. Cost-Sharing, Equity, and Access

Die Hochschule : Journal fur Wissenschaft und Bildung 17 (2008) 2, S. 94-112 Padagogische Teildis... more