Faculty publication productivity, collaboration, and grants velocity: using curricula vitae to compare center-affiliated and unaffiliated scientists

We examine the effect of a Congressionally mandated multidisciplinary center program on the careers of affiliated scientists. Important to the research evaluation design, we incorporate a control group of researchers who are not affiliated with these centers. We collect curricula vitae from both groups, a data source that has been demonstrated to provide valid and reliable longitudinal data about academic productivity. We evaluate the impact of center affiliation on publication productivity, collaboration, and grants activity. We find that center affiliation tends to promote lower grant velocity, but greater levels of collaboration. These higher levels of collaboration increase publication productivity, but gains may be offset by the lower grants velocity.