Albert-László Barabási is a Romanian-born Hungarian-American physicist, best known for his work in the research of network theory.

This article discusses the impact and methods of 'science analytics' that is the quantitative analysis of scientific outputs.

Full Article Available here: http://barabasi.com/f/939.pdf

The science of science (SciSci) offers a quantitative understanding of the interactions among scientific agents across diverse geographic and temporal scales: It provides insights into the conditions underlying creativity and the genesis of scientific discovery, with the ultimate goal of developing tools and policies that have the potential to accelerate science. [...] For example, measurements indicate that scholars are risk-averse, preferring to study topics related to their current expertise, which constrains the potential of future discoveries. Those willing to break this pattern engage in riskier careers but become more likely to make major breakthroughs. Overall, the highest- impact science is grounded in conventional combinations of prior work but features unusual combinations.

Related links

• Papers by Barabási on Nature.com
• Full text of Little Science Big Science, another seminal work in this field
• A few Twitter reactions from @michael_nielsen