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Collaborating in Life Science Research Groups: The Question of Authorship

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Abstract

This qualitative study explores how life science postdocs’ perceptions of contemporary academic career rationales influence how they relate to collaboration within research groups. One consequential dimension of these perceptions is the high value assigned to publications. For career progress, postdocs consider producing publications and especially first author publications essential. This strong focus on publications is influential for how postdocs prefer to organize the socio-epistemic processes of their research work. To ensure first authorship, avoid authorship conflicts and keep the number of co-authors low, they articulate a preference for working mainly individually. Existing collaborations and support relationships are frequently assessed in terms of whether they will have to share or lose authorship. Hence, while formally, the life sciences have become more collaborative, postdocs report that in their day-to-day practices, they try to avoid collaboration. By drawing attention to this tension, the author aims to contribute to a growing debate about incentive systems in academic science and their unexpected negative side effects.

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Notes

  1. This article is part of the author's Ph.D. thesis (2012) ‘On Becoming a “Distinguished” Scientist. Individuality and Collectivity in Postdoctoral Life Scientists' Narratives about Living and Working in the Academic Sciences.

  2. There is a more recent option of marking two others on a paper as having equally contributed to a publication. See section ‘Individualized Projects as Guarantees for First Authorships’ on how postdocs read this convention.

  3. For example, New England Journal of Medicine (1997; Updated in 2010, http://www.icmje.org/urm_full.pdf) or Nature (2009)

  4. Funded by the Austrian Genome Program GEN-AU (bmwf); September 2007–December 2010; Project leader: Ulrike Felt; Main collaborators: Max Fochler, Ruth Müller, http://sciencestudies.univie.ac.at/en/research/completed-projects/living-changes-in-the-life-sciences/

  5. The overall sample contained interviews with 19 postdocs. Two were excluded because of the special status (non-group member postdocs right after completion of Ph.D.; junior group leader); two were excluded because the postdocs turned out to work in more industrial type research setting than initially expected, and hence the whole institution was excluded from further analysis of academic career settings.

  6. Re-thinking Biosciences as Culture and Practice. Tracing ‘Ethics’ and ‘Society’ in Genome Research. March 2006–June 2007, http://sciencestudies.univie.ac.at/en/research/completed-projects/gold-ii/

  7. Some of these age limits have recently been replaced by time limits, such as numbers of years passed since Ph.D. graduation, for example, in the case of the prestigious ‘Start Program’ of the Austrian Science Fond FWF.

  8. See, for example, a report in the Viennese weekly magazine Falter from 11 January 2012, http://www.falter.at/web/print/detail.php?id=1548

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Acknowledgements

This paper is based on research conducted in the research project ‘Living Changes in the Life Sciences’, funded by GEN-AU/BMWF (Project leader: Ulrike Felt; main collaborators: Maximilian Fochler, Ruth Müller). At the moment of initially drafting this paper, the author was funded by a research fellowship of the University of Vienna for her Ph.D. thesis, which this paper is part of. The author thankfully acknowledges the valuable input of her supervisor Ulrike Felt and her dear colleague Max Fochler. Moreover, I would like to thank my friends and peers Cornelia Schadler, Martha Kenney, Michael Penkler and Kay Felder for their helpful feedback. Finally, I would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers of Higher Education Policy, whose thoughtful comments helped improve this paper in the review process. This paper was first presented at the conference ‘EASST 2010: Practicing Science and Technology, Performing the Social’ (Trento, 2–4 September 2010). Many thanks to Inge van der Weijden, Peter van den Besselaar and Sven Hemlin for organizing the track ‘Organization of Science Practices’ and for inviting this paper to this special issue of Higher Education Policy.

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  1. Austria & Department of Social Studies of Science, Austrian Institute for International Affairs – oiip, Berggasse 7, 1090 Vienna, University of Vienna, Universitätsstrae 7, 1010, Vienna, Austria

    Ruth Müller

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Müller, R. Collaborating in Life Science Research Groups: The Question of Authorship. High Educ Policy 25, 289–311 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/hep.2012.11

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