  The association between productivity and impact of scientific production is a
long-standing debate in science that remains controversial and poorly
understood. Here we present a large-scale analysis of the association between
yearly publication numbers and average journal-impact metrics for the Brazilian
scientific elite. We find this association to be discipline-specific,
career-age dependent, and similar among researchers with outlier and
non-outlier performance. Outlier researchers either outperform in productivity
or journal prestige, but they rarely do so in both categories. Non-outliers
also follow this trend and display negative correlations between productivity
and journal prestige but with discipline-dependent intensity. Our research
indicates that academics are averse to simultaneous changes in their
productivity and journal-prestige levels over consecutive career years. We also
find that career patterns concerning productivity and journal prestige are
discipline-specific, having in common a raise of productivity with career age
for most disciplines and a higher chance of outperforming in journal impact
during early career stages.
