The increasing availability of large-scale datasets that trace the entirety of the scientific enterprise has created an unprecedented opportunity to explore scientific production and reward. Parallel developments in data science, network science, and artificial intelligence offer powerful tools and techniques to make sense of these millions of data points. Together, they tell a complex yet insightful story about how scientific careers unfold, how collaborations contribute to discovery, and how scientific progress emerges through a combination of multiple interconnected factors.

These opportunities--and challenges that come with them--have fueled the emergence of a multidisciplinary community of scientists that are united by their goals of understanding science. These practitioners of the "science of science" use the scientific methods to study themselves, examine projects that work as well as those that fail, quantify the patterns that characterize discovery and invention, and offer lessons to improve science as a whole.

This talk will highlight some examples of research in this area, hoping to illustrate the promise of the science of science as well as its limitations.

Dashun Wang

Associate Professor of Management & Organizations, Kellogg School of Management and (by courtesy) Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences

Wang is the founding director of the Center for Science of Science and Innovation (CSSI). He is best known for his contributions on the science of science, a quest to turn the scientific methods and curiosities upon science itself. Wang's research has been published in academic journals such as Nature and Science, and has been featured in virtually all major global media outlets. Wang is a recipient of multiple awards for his research and teaching, and his first book "The Science of Science" (Cambridge University Press, 2021) was published in March.