Identifying attractive research fields for new scientists

Abstract

Prior to the beginning of a scientific career, every new scientist is obliged to confront the critical issue of defining the subject area where his/her future research will be conducted. Regardless of the capabilities of a new scholar, an erroneous selection may condemn a dignified effort and result in wasted energy, time and resources. In this article we attempt to identify the research fields which are attractive to these individuals. To the best of our knowledge, this is a new topic that has never been discussed or addressed in the literature. Here we formally set the problem and we propose a solution combining the characteristics of the attractive research areas and the new scholars. Our approach is compared against a statistical model which reveals popular research areas. The comparison of this method to our proposed model leads to the conclusion that not all trendy research areas are suitable for new scientists. A secondary outcome reveals the existence of scientific fields which although they are not so emerging, they are promising for scientists who are starting their career.