Automated tool captures data to analyze the scientific workforce
Software that can track researchers' career progress is under development. It will automate the collection of data required to learn how and where young scientists get jobs. A team used data collected by the tool and by manual analysis to show that higher research output correlates with scientists' ability to move voluntarily between posts (A. Geuna et al. Res. Policy http://doi.org/2hz; 2015). Using researchers' names, the tool can mine web pages and CVs to identify affiliations and research productivity. The software could be used to reconstruct the career paths of researchers and to assess which factors are correlated with staying in academic positions or moving to another sector, says lead author Aldo Geuna, an economist at the University of Turin in Italy. The tool is openly available, he says, and developers and users are working to improve its algorithms.
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Software: Career detective. Nature 519, 253 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7542-253a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7542-253a