Old and Connected versus Young and Creative: Networks and the Diffusion of New Scientific Ideas

The adoption of new ideas is critical for realizing their full potential and for advancing the knowledge frontier but it involves analyzing innovators, potential adopters, and the networks that connect them. This paper applies natural language processing, network analysis, and a novel fixed effects strategy to study how the aging of the biomedical research workforce affects idea adoption. We show that the relationship between adoption and innovator career age varies with network distance. Specifically, at short distances, young innovators’ ideas are adopted the most, while at greater network distances, mid-career innovators’ ideas have the highest adoption. The main reason for this contrast is that young innovators are close to young potential adopters who are more open to new ideas, but mid-career innovators are more central in networks. Overall adoption is hump-shaped in the career age of innovators. Simulations show that the aging of innovators and of potential adopters have comparable effects on the adoption of important new ideas.