How to Get Tenure: Research Suggests Strategy

Professors desire tenure for the security and prestige that it grants. But not everyone gets tenure, so the quest for it involves gamesmanship, persistence, strategy and competition. One would think that the quest in the sciences would have clear, scientific standards, but a new study reveals that scientists are no better than rhetoricians when it comes to objectively assigning status in academe. The study suggests that the placement of an author's name in the byline of a scientific paper has an effect on the perceived status of that person.

EMBO Reports, a scientific journal, has conducted a study that reveals a key strategy for acquiring tenure would be getting one's name as close to the start of the byline as possible.

Today it is unusual for scientific papers to be written by one author. Usually, a team of people work on the experiment or the study. The person who does the most work is often placed at the start of the list of authors; the person who is senior is placed last. The study reveals that those two positions take priority, and anybody seeking tenure, funding or advancement will be more likely to find it if placed in the list either at the start, or at the end. Contributors listed between those two spots are given less credit.

The study was conducted at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, soon to be published in EMBO Reports. Its main author, in the first position, is Jonathan Wren, Ph.D. Wren explains that the first and last positions have traditionally been given a place of priority in the scientific community. Few, if any, actual studies have been done of those authors listed in the middle.

Surveys were mailed to committees at various universities that are responsible for promotions. 142 Canadian and US medical schools were polled. Nearly 30 percent of Canadian schools responded, with the US response rate at 66 percent.

Results showed that a contributor placed in the mid-section of the byline received little credit for participation. The more contributors listed in the middle, the more any one name's distinction falls. Wren explains that status is awarded subjectively, without clear standards. The closer the writer is to the start position, the better. Those listed last "tend to maintain their standing no matter how many" people appear in the list.

Wren argues that all of the contributors deserve a fair share of the credit, and he hopes that the study will inform selection and promotion committees of their own subjective tendencies in this area.

The name placement strategy should also be of interest to job seekers in business, high tech sectors; in defense related aerospace application papers; in computer science programs; in economics and marketing papers; in educational studies; and for researchers in oil and gas exploration, environmental studies and nuclear energy applications papers. In short, in any technical or research situation in business or academe in which papers have multiple authors.

Lost in the Middle, EurekAlert