Paula Stephan | Science Funding and Risk Aversion

Science Funding
Written By David Lang


Bio | Paula Stephan is professor emerita of economics, Georgia State University and a research associate, National Bureau of Economic Research. Her research focuses on the economics of science and the careers of scientists and engineers. Recent work examines how bibliometric measures discourage risk taking in science, the relationship between international mobility and scientific productivity, how gender pairing between student and advisor relates to the productivity of PhD recipients and the economics of the postdoctoral position. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was a member of the Board of Reviewing Editors, Science from 2012-2019. She was named ScienceCareers’ first Person of the Year in 2012. Stephan was a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar for the 2018-2019 academic year.

Stephan has published numerous articles in such journals as The American Economic Review, The Journal of Economic Literature, Management Science, Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Organization Science, PLOS One, Research Policy and Science. Her book How Economics Shapes Science was published by Harvard University Press, 2012 and has been translated into Chinese and Korean. An earlier book, Striking the Mother Lode in Science (co-authored with Sharon Levin) was published in 1992 by Oxford University Press. Her research has been supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.

Stephan currently serves on the Board of Science, Technology and Economic Policy, National Academies, and the SUNY Research Council. In the recent past she served on the Academies’ Committee on the Next Generation of Researchers, on the National Research Council’s Board of Higher Education and Workforce and the Committee to Review the State of the Postdoctoral Experience for Scientists and Engineers. She served on the National Advisory General Medical Sciences Council, National Institutes of Health 2005-2009 and served on the Advisory Committee of the Social, Behavioral, and Economics Program, National Science Foundation, 2001-2008 (CEOSE, 2001- 2003).

Stephan has held visiting positions at the Max Planck Institute, Munich, Germany, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, Harvard University, International Center for Economic Research, Turin, Italy, and the Wizzenschaftszentrum für Social Forschung, Berlin, Germany. Stephan received her undergraduate degree in economics from Grinnell College (Phi Beta Kappa) and her PhD from the University of Michigan.

Links | website | book

Intro | Funding is central to the challenges facing science and scientists. Paula Stephan wrote the book on it. Her work has illuminated the incentives that dictate research directions and academic careers. Following the money has led Stephan and her colleagues to, more recently, look at the relationship between novelty and risk taking (or the lack thereof).

Stephan has one of the widest lenses on the systemic problems in science as well as specific and good ideas to fix them. Thinking bigger, she singled out the college ranking system as having a particularly pernicious effect on university science.

David Lang
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