Impact of academic origin and career path of supervisors on scientific productivity of students

Abstract

Recent science policies emphasize academic mobility and denounce inbreeding, a type of academic origin, which new employees are hired from among the graduates of the same institution, as an impediment to scientific productivity. On the other hand, it remains to be determined how graduate students training is affected by supervisors’ academic origin. This study aims to investigate the impact of academic origin on students’ scientific productivity, drawing on in-depth longitudinal data of academics’ careers and students’ individual data in University of Tokyo. The results suggest that the effect of inbreeding on students’ scientific productivity differ with the organization levels (university, department, and laboratory) with which inbreeding is defined, as well as with past affiliation to other institutions. Inbreeding has a positive aspect in research personnel training, and policy to eliminate it uniformly needs to be reconsidered.