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Intellectual synthesis in mentorship determines success in academic careers
As academic careers become more competitive, junior scientists need to understand the value that mentorship brings to their success in academia. Previous research has found that, unsurprisingly, successful mentors tend to train successful students. But what characteristics of this relationship predi...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6258699/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30482900 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07034-y |
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author | Liénard, Jean F. Achakulvisut, Titipat Acuna, Daniel E. David, Stephen V. |
author_facet | Liénard, Jean F. Achakulvisut, Titipat Acuna, Daniel E. David, Stephen V. |
author_sort | Liénard, Jean F. |
collection | PubMed |
description | As academic careers become more competitive, junior scientists need to understand the value that mentorship brings to their success in academia. Previous research has found that, unsurprisingly, successful mentors tend to train successful students. But what characteristics of this relationship predict success, and how? We analyzed an open-access database of 18,856 researchers who have undergone both graduate and postdoctoral training, compiled across several fields of biomedical science with an emphasis on neuroscience. Our results show that postdoctoral mentors were more instrumental to trainees’ success compared to graduate mentors. Trainees’ success in academia was also predicted by the degree of intellectual synthesis between their graduate and postdoctoral mentors. Researchers were more likely to succeed if they trained under mentors with disparate expertise and integrated that expertise into their own work. This pattern has held up over at least 40 years, despite fluctuations in the number of students and availability of independent research positions. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6258699 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-62586992018-11-29 Intellectual synthesis in mentorship determines success in academic careers Liénard, Jean F. Achakulvisut, Titipat Acuna, Daniel E. David, Stephen V. Nat Commun Article As academic careers become more competitive, junior scientists need to understand the value that mentorship brings to their success in academia. Previous research has found that, unsurprisingly, successful mentors tend to train successful students. But what characteristics of this relationship predict success, and how? We analyzed an open-access database of 18,856 researchers who have undergone both graduate and postdoctoral training, compiled across several fields of biomedical science with an emphasis on neuroscience. Our results show that postdoctoral mentors were more instrumental to trainees’ success compared to graduate mentors. Trainees’ success in academia was also predicted by the degree of intellectual synthesis between their graduate and postdoctoral mentors. Researchers were more likely to succeed if they trained under mentors with disparate expertise and integrated that expertise into their own work. This pattern has held up over at least 40 years, despite fluctuations in the number of students and availability of independent research positions. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-11-27 /pmc/articles/PMC6258699/ /pubmed/30482900 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07034-y Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Liénard, Jean F. Achakulvisut, Titipat Acuna, Daniel E. David, Stephen V. Intellectual synthesis in mentorship determines success in academic careers |
title | Intellectual synthesis in mentorship determines success in academic careers |
title_full | Intellectual synthesis in mentorship determines success in academic careers |
title_fullStr | Intellectual synthesis in mentorship determines success in academic careers |
title_full_unstemmed | Intellectual synthesis in mentorship determines success in academic careers |
title_short | Intellectual synthesis in mentorship determines success in academic careers |
title_sort | intellectual synthesis in mentorship determines success in academic careers |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6258699/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30482900 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07034-y |
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