Fig. 3: Impact of senior coauthors on junior researcher’s likely mid-career impact.

Early career researchers with a (a) high λ or (c) high θ senior coauthors are substantially more likely to be elite authors by their mid-careers, regardless of institutional prestige. The magnitude of this effect for both (b) λ and (d) θ is large regardless of the career age of the senior coauthor, but decreases modestly with age. Junior researchers with early high λ coauthors n for yes = 57,552; no = 229,225. Junior researchers with early high θ coauthors n for yes = 30,983; no = 255,794. Two-sided t-test for comparisons. Error bars in (a and c) indicate mean ± 1.96 SEM. In (b, d), solid lines indicate mean and shaded areas indicate 95% confidence intervals.