49M-paper study: Scientists who switch fields sustain innovation longer
Generalists out-innovate specialists over a career, but they're becoming rare.
A new quantitative framework developed by Yiling Lin, Zak Risha, Erin Leahey, and Lingfei Wu distinguishes generalists from specialists based on patterns of disciplinary mobility, independent of career age or productivity. Applying this to 49 million publications from 3 million scientists spanning 1900 to 2020, the study reveals a striking pattern: scientists who move across fields are significantly more likely to sustain innovative contributions throughout their careers, whereas those who remain in narrow fields exhibit the classic age-related decline in innovation. Generalists are less anchored to their training literature, more likely to pursue independent research, and when they collaborate, they preferentially partner with other generalists. Teams with a higher share of generalists produce more innovative research, even after controlling for knowledge diversity.
Despite these clear advantages, generalists publish fewer papers on average and have become less common over time. This creates a tension between the longevity of scientific careers and the longevity of scientific innovation. The findings challenge the prevailing model of deep specialization and suggest that cross-disciplinary mobility could be a key strategy for sustaining breakthrough contributions over a full career. For organizations and funding agencies, the results imply that encouraging researchers to explore adjacent fields—rather than deepening silos—may yield more durable innovation pipelines.
- Scientists who move across fields are more likely to sustain innovation throughout their careers, while narrow specialists see a decline with age.
- Generalists publish fewer papers on average but produce more innovative research, especially in teams with other generalists.
- Despite their innovation advantage, the proportion of generalists in science has been declining over the past century.
Why It Matters
For professionals, cross-disciplinary mobility may be the key to long-term innovative impact over a career.