The publication productivity of young scientists: An empirical study

This research was conducted on a sample of 840 respondents who represent half of the Croatian population of young scientists. There are three main features which define the publication productivity of young scientists. 1) Despite the worsened position of R & D, they publish more scientific papers than the young generations of scientists at the beginning of the nineties. 2) Differences between a highly-productive minority, which produces on average half of all scientific publications, and a low-productive majority is already apparent in young scientists. 3) The productivity of young scientists is formed according to productivity patterns typical of particular scientific fields and disciplines. With regard to the explanation of productivity, the following has been found. a) An expansion of the set of predictors resulted in an improvement in the explanation of the productivity of young scientists compared with previous surveys. b) Among the factors which contribute significantly to the explanation of the quantity of scientific publications, the most powerful predictor is attendance at conferences abroad, followed by scientific qualifications and some gatekeeping variables. c) Besides certain similarities, scientific fields also show a specific structure of determinants of young scientists' productivity.