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I'm a postdoc and I'm always faced with two publishing choices:

  1. Publish incrementally. This entails things like: Pick a low-hanging fruit that won't have much of an impact to the field; publish a small update / tiny advance to a bigger framework that someone else has developed; merge with my collaborators and help in their projects accepting that oftentimes I will not be the first author.
  2. Work on my next big thing. Work on my own novel idea that can bring a significant advance to my field for which I can become known for, but it being a big time investment, it might not results in a publication in the next 2 years.

While I like helping others in their projects and can do that occasionally, personally, I'd prefer to put most of my efforts in #2. But I always sense the external time pressures to have something (often, anything) published, just to not have gaps in my CV, just to be able to secure the next early-career grant...

Assuming that I want to stay in academia and apply for faculty positions, which strategy is valued more by hiring committees and funding agencies? My field is computational engineering.

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    I think this depends on whether you're trying to be hired by MIT or by Rose-Hulman. Part of answering my question is whether you have a chance of being hired by MIT. Commented Oct 3 at 13:50
  • @AlexanderWoo, I'm not intending to apply in the US. I would like to target good universities in Europe though and would like to establish a strong research program as a PI one day. Several academics have told me that, as far as my PhD accomplishments are considered, I have a very good CV. Commented Oct 3 at 14:08
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    I was told mathematicians production is judged in terms of the L^p norm of the values of the papers, with p rather high. Commented Oct 4 at 18:33
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    Best of both worlds: work on your next big thing, but in the process, publish lots of papers about results that for you are "only intermediary results to the big thing", but for your peers are still interesting on their own! Commented Oct 6 at 14:57

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The answer is neither, and both.

What you need to show is that you are capable of carrying out impactful research. Publishing a lot of low end research does not show that. In fact, it may even show the opposite that you are just an unoriginal opportunist, and there are many of those (they often end up being career postdocs, you don't want that to be the impression you give).

So to that end, you want to aim for impactful research. Research that allows you to tell a cohesive, and engaging story about what you have done, and frames the focus of what you plan to do in the future (you cannot do that with piecemeal low-grade contributions). However, there is a lot of risk chasing that one top end paper (like Science/Nature/Cell); you can get scooped, it can fail at an important junction, and frankly you may also lack the appropriate experience to accurately judge if what you are doing actually belongs there. So my recommendation to my own students and postdocs who have gone down that path is publish quality works, more frequently, in respected Q1 journals in your field to build your reputation. Of course if you stumble onto that BIG idea, then obviously aim high, it may just get in.

Now the other end of it. As you perform research you will probably collect some lower impact peripheral results which get left out of your strongest papers. If you can, publish them. Find respectable niche journals within your field and send them in. This will build your citation count and show committees that you are productive. So lower impact papers can be good if they are low impact because of their narrow scope, not because of the lower quality of research, and they should not be your "flagship" achievement, but rather filler.

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  • Very useful thoughts, thank you so much. I guess in my point #2 I had Science/Nature/Cell in mind, but it's useful to hear that the field's Q1 journals are a more sure way to build reputation. Commented Oct 3 at 17:39
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    Our last Nature "X" paper took over 1 year from submission to publication, and the reviews were supportive and it was all very easy in the end. I'm a tenured professor at a big school with a good reputation in my field. I cannot recommend a postdoc play this type of game for 1-2 years trying to get a paper accepted (or as often is the case downgraded to a lower subsidiary journal with APC)... not unless you already have many other things in the works/already published that provide you with a strong CV. Commented Oct 3 at 18:08
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The mistake is in thinking that strategy #1 strictly precludes a big breakthrough. You often get a new idea or have an "aha moment" precisely by chipping away systematically at a problem you know something about. So an "incremental" approach is not to be derided, it is the way one gets a deeper, more thorough understanding. And you'd have the benefit of getting published.

It is of course possible to make a leap directly to the "next big thing", but it is less likely. I daresay it is even less likely in areas like computational engineering.

Also, even if you have a new computational method you'd like it to be accepted and widely adopted, wouldn't you? Getting people to use your (new and shiny) computational method is HARD, researchers are usually very comfortable with their existing tools unless you convince them there are genuine and major advantages of switching. People usually demand extensive validation, verification, source code / example problems. I've even seen people offer special sessions at conferences to promote their method(s).

I mean, there is a reason JCP and IJNME are replete with fancy methods papers that few others have bothered to use or even cite beyond a tangential reference.

Difficult to say anything about hiring without more specifics, except that strong evidence of research productivity (i.e. publications in high-impact venues) is always a plus.

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    What are JCP and IJNME? Commented Oct 3 at 16:06
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To get promoted you need both a reasonable volume and a few important papers. It's easy enough (or should be) to keep up a steady stream of workman-like papers while working toward the Big Thing.

Tenure processes I am aware of specifically allow a candidate to highlight particular papers. Choose well.

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    I'm not sure what you mean by promoted, but I'm not on tenure track yet. Please note that my question is not what will get me tenure, but what will land me my first position as a PI. Commented Oct 3 at 17:41

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