Scooped! Estimating Rewards for Priority in Science

Abstract

The scientific community assigns credit or “priority” to individuals who publish an important discovery first. We examine the impact of losing a priority race (colloquially known as getting “scooped”) on publication and career outcomes. To do so, we analyze data from structural biology where the nature of the scientific process together with the Protein Data Bank enables us to identify priority races and their outcomes. We find that scooped teams are less likely to publish in top journals and receive 21 percent fewer citations. We further study the implications of priority racing on research strategy, academic inequality, and scientist beliefs.