Research funding and citations in papers of Nobel Laureates in Physics, Chemistry and Medicine, 2019-2020

Citations of scientific publications are a main indicator of the diffusion of science and recorded knowledge for supporting the scientific development, new technological applications and also scientific performance of scholars, journals, institutions, etc. (Ma, 2021; Mosleh et al., 2022; Saam & Reiter, 1999). The studies of documents and recorded knowledge in the field of science of science analyze manifold aspects of these topics, such as Li et al. (2013) analyze the relation between authorship networks and publication performances, Petersen et al. (2014) analyze the driving role of institutions’ collaboration on citations of scientific production, whereas other scholars investigate the impact of funding agencies on research activity (MacLean et al., 1998), how research sponsorship affects citations in nanotechnology papers (Wang & Shapira, 2011), the academic performance of scientific teams (Zhang et al., 2023), etc. Yan et al. (2018) maintain that funded rather than unfunded studies receive more citations. Quinlan et al. (2008) also point out that funded researches that are published in journals generate more citations than unfunded documents (cf., Morillo, 2020; Pao, 1991; Roshani et al, 2021). Zhao et al. (2018) suggest that research funding is basic for reward system in studies (cf., Stephan, 1996). Heyard and Hottenrott (2021) show that funded studies receive more public attention than other researches. Roshani et al. (2021) analyze specific research fields and show that in computer science, medicine and economics, funded studies published in journals receive more citations than unfunded ones. Instead, Mosleh et al. (2022) analyze main research fields (agricultural and biological sciences; biochemistry, genetics, and molecular biology; immunology and microbiology; neuroscience; and pharmacology, toxicology and pharmaceutics) and show that funded researches that are published in articles of journals receive more citations than unfunded research activity and that funded research has a higher scale factor (multiplier) than unfunded one. Ali and Nazim (2023) analyze funded and non-funded research published in high-impact library and information science journals.

In this context, a fundamental question, hardly known, is to clarify the patterns of citations of leading scholars in natural sciences considering funded and unfunded researches published in articles of scientific journals and if the relations are consistent with the science dynamics in research fields as a whole. In particular, this study seeks to answer the following research questions (RQ):

RQ1: How is the relationship between research funding and citations of articles by Nobel Laureates in chemistry, physics, and medicine?

RQ2: The estimated power-law function of citations on funded and unfunded researches published in articles by Nobel laureates in chemistry, physics, and medicine is consistent when compared to estimated relationship based on overall data in these research fields?

The present study confronts these scientific inquiries here by developing a scientometric analysis based on papers of Nobel Laureates (in physics, chemistry and medicine, over 2019 - 2020) to assess how research funding can affect the citations and if the relation found is similar with the same research fields as a whole.

The paper here is part of a large body of research that endeavors to successfully identify and explain the driving forces of scientific development and diffusion to support best practices of research policy directed to a fruitful evolution of science having a positive societal impact (cf., Fortunato et al., 2018; Coccia, 2018, 2018a-b, 2019, 2019a-e, 2020, 2020a-c, 2021, 2022; Coccia et al., 2015, 2023; Coccia & Rolfo, 2008; Coccia & Roshani, 2024; Coccia & Wang, 2016; Huang et al., 2023; Mosleh et al., 2022; Roshani et al., 2021).

The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the theoretical background, discussing theories and previous works that frame our research. Section 3 describes the materials and methods, detailing our research design, data collection, modelling and analytical techniques and statistical analyses. In Section 4, we present our results and a comprehensive discussion, comparing our findings with existing literature and drawing insights for scientific development and diffusion. Finally, Section 5 show concluding remarks and implications of our findings for effective science and research policies. In addition, we discuss the limitations of our study and suggest further directions for future research in these main topics.

In order to examine the relationship between research funding and citation of leading scholars and related research fields, a background of previous studies and results can clarify the current state-of-the-art in these topics. Hu and Rousseau (2017) analyze the short-run and long-run contributions of Nobel laureates to clarify their scientific advances. Turki et al. (2020) investigate the scientific production, citations and co-citation networks of Nobel winners to explain, how and when Nobel-awarded discoveries have been achieved and published. Li et al. (2022) conduct a scientometric analysis of the interdisciplinarity of research by scholars winning Nobel Prize compared to non-Nobel Prize in the field of physiology. Results show that papers of Nobel Prize winners have a lower interdisciplinarity than studies of non-Nobel Prize scholars. Bjørk (2020) investigates the most important journals that have published Nobel Prizeawarded papers in physics and shows the vital role of specialized journals, such as Physical Review Letters and Astrophysical journal, whereas the multidisciplinary journals (e.g., Science and Nature) have a small share of papers having discoveries leading to win a Nobel Prize. This study also reveals that path-breaking contributions in physics are published in journals regardless of having a high impact factor. Ma et al. (2012) show that the papers of Nobel Laureates (e.g., in physics) have been published mainly in journals of their own country and of the USA. Kosmulski (2020) analyzes the contributions of about 100 Nobel laureates in chemistry, economy, medicine, and physics from 2010 to 2019 and reveals that 32 Nobel laureates were in top 6,000 scientists considering the Hirsch (H) index, whereas 17 Nobel laureates were among the 6,000 highly cited researchers, 4 Nobel laureates were in top 6,000 scientists considering the number of papers, and finally only 2 Nobel laureates were in top 6,000 scientists based on the number of highly cited papers. Kademani et al. (2005) analyze scientific productivity, collaboration and authorship status of Nobel Laureates and show the specificity of their research activity, such that their studies cannot be compared among each other. The study also reveals that the important discoveries of leading scholars are due to manifold factors, such as education, scientific institution, affiliation, intuition, serendipity, luck, self-determination, research funding, etc. (Coccia, 2005, 2008, 2008a, b; Coccia, 2009, 2010, 2014;2018a, c; Coccia, 2019b, d, f; Pagliaro & Coccia, 2021). Moreover, Nobel laureates have mainly multi-authored papers, suggesting that the research is of leading scholars becoming more and more collaborative to investigate complex topics that support the scientific and technological development (cf., also Mabe & Amin, 2002; Coccia et al., 2023; Coccia & Bozeman, 2016; Coccia & Wang, 2016). Bjørk (2019) also analyzes at what age Nobel Laureates produce their most groundbreaking works: in general, the average age when their Prizewinning research was conducted is about 44 years, except in physics where scholars are younger. Moreover, Nobel Laureates in physics have published their path-breaking contributions in a short run compared to Nobel laureates in other fields, whereas in economics, the scientific production leading to a Nobel Prize is produced over a longer period compared to Nobel Laureates in other disciplines. In addition, waiting time from the published research having the discovery and/ or scientific advance to the year of the award of Nobel Prize is about 22 years. Instead, Heinze and Fuchs (2022) investigate the spatial distribution of Nobel Laureates in medicine, physics and chemistry across countries and show that four countries support mainly the education leading to be awarded of a Nobel Prize: the USA, the UK, Germany and France. Results also reveal the hegemony of education in US universities for achieving the Nobel Prize, such as Princeton University for Physics, the Rockefeller University for Chemistry and Medicine/ Physiology, etc. Other studies focus on other aspects (Rodríguez-Navarro, 2011; Sen et al., 1998; Urde & Greyser, 2015; Wen, 2019).

Overall, then, the existing body of research has examined various factors of Nobel Laureates’ scientific activity, such as the timing and interdisciplinary of their work, education, publications in specialized journals, and the role of institutional factors. However, how the citations of their articles in journals are associated with research funding is unknown. The goal here is to analyze this problem to clarify the relation between research funding and citations of papers by Nobel Laureates in some research fields, comparing the results to average citations in the same research fields as a whole. The next section presents the methodology to analyze these interesting topics of social studies of science and scientometrics related to documents and recorded knowledge of leading scholars.

This study explores the relationship between research funding and citations of scientific publications by Nobel Laureates in physics, chemistry and medicine over 2019 and 2020 and the same relation considering data of overall these research fields. Our findings confirm previous studies by showing that research funding is a critical driving force of citations and diffusion of knowledge with scientific publications. The novelty of this study is that it shows a higher effect of research funding for citations mainly in more applied research fields (Mosleh et al., 2022; Roshani et al., 2021). Another new result is that research fields oriented to basic research (e.g., physics) have a diffusion of knowledge and citations also in unfunded studies published in aricles of journals regardless of sponsor, because of manifold factors, such as specificity nature of these sciences investigating universal topics, international collaboration networks, countries having global leadership in studies of specific fields, etc. (cf. Coccia, 2019; Cole & Cole, 1967; Dewett & Denisi, 2004; Makino, 1998; Saam & Reiter, 1999; Storer, 1967). This study clarifies the impact of research funding on citations, with a particular focus on publications by Nobel Laureates in physics, chemistry, and medicine from 2019 to 2020. Unlike earlier studies, such as Roshani et al., 2021 and Mosleh et al., 2022, which examined overall fields, we centered our attention here on the citation performance of leading scholars in vital fields of research. Our analysis underscores the potent influence of research funding on citation performance, particularly in applied research domains. These empirical results here also shed new light on the unique science dynamics related to each field, offering alternative perspectives for shaping research policies directed to effective funding allocation for emboldening a high societal and scientific impact. The novelty and significance of results just mentioned are systematized in general properties that can clarify some vital factors determining the scientific diffusion, namely: (1) funded studies published in articles of journals in the fields of physics, chemistry, and medicine consistently show a higher α (scaling factor) than unfunded researches published in articles. This aspect suggests that, across research fields, articles with funded research grow faster in terms of citations compared to those without research funding; (2) both in chemistry and in medicine, funded studies published in articles of journals have higher α values (1.25 for both) compared to values (1.25 for both) compared to physics (1.17). This finding indicates that fields focused on applied research might benefit more from research funding in terms of citation growth and science diffusion than fields oriented to basic research.

Moreover, what this study adds to the existing body of research related to documents and recorded knowledge on these topics, starting from publications and citations of Nobel Laureates, is that funding sponsors can be basic driving forces of scientific diffusion of studies published in articles written by leading scholars in natural sciences. However, results also reveal that while research funding is a critical driver of citations in scientific publications of applied research, other factors can support citations and diffusion of knowledge of unfunded studies published in articles of journals in sciences more oriented to basic research, such as physics. These findings can improve decisions of policymakers to allocate R&D investments with effectiveness across different research fields in order to foster the diffusion of science, technological applications and consequential positive industrial and societal impact.

Our study is rooted in a power-law relationship, which often surfaces in many complex systems, as in research fields, and signifies the presence of underlying multiplicative processes (Katz, 2016). For instance, the relationship between research funding and citations, especially concerning Nobel Laureates, is inherently complex. External variables such as the nature of the research topic, collaboration networks, affiliations, and even the influence of global events can sway diffusion of results and related citations. Our model endeavored to spotlight the most pivotal factors of science diffusion, but a singular model cannot explain the total variance of factors driving the scientific development.

Our results give decision-makers clearer insights into how funding can shape diffusion of scientific research, especially for contributors of leading scholars (e.g., Nobel Laureates). By highlighting the difference in citation performance between funded and unfunded research, this study offers valuable guidance for policy-makers, funding agencies, and institutions in designing effective science and research policies. While funding certainly boosts the visibility and impact of applied research, our findings also show that in basic research, like physics, even without financial support, the research can have a high impact because focus on universal problems in science and society. These results here suggest balanced funding strategies that value both applied and basic research.