Productivity in Science Nobel Laureates and their Path to Idea Acceptance

Creativity is a vital component of technological and societal advancement. Yet despite the importance of creativity to world development, creativity has remained an area of relatively little empirical study. Many creativity theorists suggest that in order for an idea to be deemed creative, the idea must be accepted by one’s peers within a given discipline. Our study investigated how creative ideas become accepted for science Nobel Prize laureates. Nobel laureates were chosen for this study because previous research has established Nobel laureates as eminent creative individuals. Archival data was collected for 187 Nobel laureates from 1980-2009 in physics, chemistry, and medicine. Idea acceptance was evaluated for three key publications in the Nobel laureates’ publishing careers; (1) first publication concerning their Nobel idea (FN), (2) highest cited publication concerning their Nobel idea (HN), and (3) last publication concerning their Nobel idea (LN). Using measures of academic prestige such as citation counts, journal impact factors, journal cited half-life ratings, and Eigenfactor scores, idea acceptance was evaluated for each key publication. We found that idea acceptance for these publications generally followed the pattern of LN < FN < HN (with HN being the most accepted publication). We also found that idea acceptance varied across prize area.ASC Honors Research GrantNo embarg