New Research In
Physical Sciences
Social Sciences
Featured Portals
Articles by Topic
Biological Sciences
Featured Portals
Articles by Topic
- Agricultural Sciences
- Anthropology
- Applied Biological Sciences
- Biochemistry
- Biophysics and Computational Biology
- Cell Biology
- Developmental Biology
- Ecology
- Environmental Sciences
- Evolution
- Genetics
- Immunology and Inflammation
- Medical Sciences
- Microbiology
- Neuroscience
- Pharmacology
- Physiology
- Plant Biology
- Population Biology
- Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
- Sustainability Science
- Systems Biology
The Diversity–Innovation Paradox in Science
Edited by Peter S. Bearman, Columbia University, New York, NY, and approved March 16, 2020 (received for review September 5, 2019)

Significance
By analyzing data from nearly all US PhD recipients and their dissertations across three decades, this paper finds demographically underrepresented students innovate at higher rates than majority students, but their novel contributions are discounted and less likely to earn them academic positions. The discounting of minorities’ innovations may partly explain their underrepresentation in influential positions of academia.
Abstract
Prior work finds a diversity paradox: Diversity breeds innovation, yet underrepresented groups that diversify organizations have less successful careers within them. Does the diversity paradox hold for scientists as well? We study this by utilizing a near-complete population of ∼1.2 million US doctoral recipients from 1977 to 2015 and following their careers into publishing and faculty positions. We use text analysis and machine learning to answer a series of questions: How do we detect scientific innovations? Are underrepresented groups more likely to generate scientific innovations? And are the innovations of underrepresented groups adopted and rewarded? Our analyses show that underrepresented groups produce higher rates of scientific novelty. However, their novel contributions are devalued and discounted: For example, novel contributions by gender and racial minorities are taken up by other scholars at lower rates than novel contributions by gender and racial majorities, and equally impactful contributions of gender and racial minorities are less likely to result in successful scientific careers than for majority groups. These results suggest there may be unwarranted reproduction of stratification in academic careers that discounts diversity’s role in innovation and partly explains the underrepresentation of some groups in academia.
Footnotes
- ↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: bhofstra{at}stanford.edu or mcfarland{at}stanford.edu.
Author contributions: B. Hofstra, V.V.K., and D.A.M. designed research; B. Hofstra, V.V.K., S.M.-N.G., B. He, D.J., and D.A.M. performed research; B. Hofstra, V.V.K., S.M.-N.G., B. He, D.J., and D.A.M. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; B. Hofstra, V.V.K., S.M.-N.G., B. He, D.J., and D.A.M. analyzed data; and B. Hofstra and D.A.M. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no competing interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
See online for related content such as Commentaries.
This article contains supporting information online at https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1915378117/-/DCSupplemental.
Published under the PNAS license.
Citation Manager Formats
Sign up for Article Alerts
Article Classifications
- Social Sciences
- Social Sciences