A New Synthesis for the Science of Science

Meeting Summary: New scientific knowledge comes from the collective and linked efforts of thousands of researchers working within and across disciplines. The makeup of this scientific workforce shapes what scientific discoveries are made, and its social structure is complex, evolving, and composed of many interacting individuals, groups, and organizations. At the same time, inequalities pervade both the individual and organizational levels of the academy, including inequalities related to gender, race, and ethnic representation, as well as inequalities in scholarly productivity rates, social capital, institutional prestige, and resources. Understanding the social origins and scientific consequences of these differences is a central goal of the emerging interdisciplinary field of the Science of Science. 

This workshop will bring together a diverse set of scholars to develop a new vision for this field, through which to leverage modern digital infrastructure (including bibliographic databases, digital censuses of fields, and the powerful tools of causal inference and machine learning) to untangle the causal social, competitive, and structural mechanisms that drive the scientific ecosystem and underlie scientific progress. The results of this workshop will help inform evidence-based policies that address individual and structural inequalities to increase the pace and diversity of scientific discoveries.

This event is supported by the National Science Foundation Grant Number 2006355, Workshop: A New Synthesis for the Science of Science. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.