Adaptability and the Pivot Penalty in Science

The ability to confront new questions, opportunities, and challenges is of fundamental importance human progress the resilience societies, yet capacity science meet demands remains poorly understood. Here we deploy a measurement framework investigate scientific response COVID-19 pandemic adaptability as whole. We find that rapidly shifted engage following advent virus, with scientists across all fields making large jumps from their prior research streams. However, this adaptive reveals pervasive “pivot penalty,” where impact steeply declines further move work. pivot penalty severe amidst research, but it not unique COVID-19. Rather applies nearly universally sciences, has been growing in magnitude over past five decades. While features condition pivoting, including scientist’s career stage, expertise impact, collaborative scale, use coauthors, funding, persists substantial regardless these features, suggesting acts friction governs science’s adapt. only holds key implications for design system emergent through advance, may also be relevant other social economic systems, shifting central survival success.