John Walsh Study Ranks Among the 100 Most-Discussed Research Papers of 2019

Posted January 3, 2020

More than 2.7 million research outputs were tracked in 2019 by Altmetric. The firm highlights a handful of those outputs – the most discussed research papers of the year – in its Top 100.

Among the top-performing articles in 2019 was Georgia Tech School of Public Policy Professor John Walsh’s “Changing demographics of scientific careers: The rise of the temporary workforce.”

Walsh co-authored the article with colleagues Staša Milojevic and Filippo Radicchi from the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University. It was published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in December 2018.

The study examined how, increasingly, “critical scientific work is taking place in teams, and there are people who are building their careers supporting these teams. These supporting scientists are here to stay as a part of our scientific workforce, but we don’t really have a career system that accounts for and recognizes the contributions they make,” according to Walsh.

Altmetric says that its Top 100 "highlights research published in the last 12 months that has generated significant international online attention and discussion" across many platforms, "from patents and public policy documents to mainstream media, blogs, Wikipedia, and social media platforms."

Read more about the much-discussed paper.