Mobility Sparks Genius: How Changing Locations Accelerates Nobel-Worthy Ideas

Moving to new places or splitting time between multiple locations could shave years off the journey to groundbreaking scientific work, according to research published yesterday in the International Economic Review.

The study of Nobel Prize winners revealed that laureates who relocated more frequently began their prize-winning research up to two years earlier than their more stationary counterparts. Those who worked in multiple locations simultaneously started their innovative work as much as 2.6 years sooner.

“They’re hearing interesting ideas at one place and different ideas at another location. They are putting these things together in novel, important ways,” said Bruce Weinberg, professor of economics at The Ohio State University and co-author of the study. “If they stayed in one place, it would take much longer to happen or may not happen at all.”

While previous research has focused on the benefits of scientific clusters like Silicon Valley, this study suggests that movement between centers of excellence may be equally valuable.

“You can be in one place with lots of brilliant people, but after a while, you’ve talked to all of them and you develop a common understanding of how things work,” Weinberg explained. “You’re less likely to come up with this great breakthrough unless you are exposed to a new set of ideas you haven’t heard before.”

The researchers, including John Ham of New York University in Abu Dhabi and Brian Quistorff of the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, analyzed data on Nobel laureates in chemistry, medicine, and physics from 1901 to 2003. They tracked when and where these brilliant minds worked, and when they began the research that eventually earned them science’s highest honor.

For some scientists, the path to Nobel-worthy work begins early—about 5% to 10% of laureates started their prize-winning research in the first year of their careers. However, many took decades to begin their most significant work, with some waiting 30 or even 40 years.

The analysis showed that moving to a new location every two years could reduce the time before beginning Nobel Prize-winning work by two years. Even relocating every five years showed benefits, reducing the waiting period by 0.7 years.

“For someone who might have taken 10 years to begin their prizewinning research if they stayed in one place, moving every two years could reduce that time by nearly a quarter. That is substantially accelerating their innovations,” noted Weinberg.

The research points to potential benefits of academic sabbaticals, which give researchers opportunities to work in new environments. While this study specifically examined Nobel laureates, the researchers believe their findings could apply to many other creative fields.

“Many scientists work the same way as our study’s chemistry, medicine, and physics researchers. They can benefit by moving to new places and being exposed to new ideas,” Weinberg said. “I think the same might even be true of great painters and artists and anyone in a creative domain – their genius is coming up with novel ideas and expressing them in novel ways.”

The researchers also speculate that beyond just meeting new people, the simple act of being in a new environment might spark creativity, though this study doesn’t directly address that question.

“Going off into a completely different environment, a new context, might help creative people think in new ways,” suggested Weinberg.

Interestingly, the average time taken to begin prize-winning work remained remarkably consistent across the study period from 1901 to 2003, and was similar across all three scientific disciplines examined.

In today’s increasingly connected world, where remote work and international collaboration are more common than ever, these findings suggest that physically changing one’s surroundings—not just connecting virtually—may provide meaningful benefits for scientific innovation.

The research was supported by several organizations including the National Science Foundation, the National Institute on Aging, the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research, the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the John Templeton, Ewing Marion Kauffman, and Alfred P. Sloan Foundations.