Old and connected versus young and creative: Networks and the diffusion of new scientific ideas

The adoption of new ideas is essential for progress and involves innovators, potential adopters, and their networks. We apply natural language processing, network analysis, and a novel fixed effects strategy to study how career age affects idea adoption in coauthorship networks in biomedical science. At short network distances (≤3 steps away), young innovators' ideas are adopted the most while, at greater distances, mid-career innovators' ideas have the highest adoption. The main reason for this contrast is that young potential adopters are disproportionately likely to adopt new ideas introduced by nearby young innovators. Simulations show that the aging of innovators and of potential adopters have comparable effects on the adoption of important new ideas.