Where is the Next Step? Predicting the Scientific Impact of Research Career

Hefu Zhang, Yong Ge, Yan Zhuang, Enhong Chen

Abstract: Predicting the scientific impact of research scholars is increasingly crucial for career planning, particularly for young scholars considering career transitions. However, predicting a scholar's future development, especially after they move to a different academic group, presents significant challenges. To tackle this issue, we propose a Future Publication Impact Prediction Network (FPIPN) based on graph neural networks. FPIPN leverages rich information from a heterogeneous academic graph for impact prediction. We employ a hierarchical attention mechanism to learn the significance of graph information and utilize a knowledge distillation strategy to assess future impact based on historical records. Extensive experiments on a real-world academic dataset showcase the effectiveness of our approach compared to state-of-the-art methods.