I'm in my 4th year of my phd at a fairly small and less known university (in Europe) where I also did my bachelors and masters. I submitted 6 more papers to the top conference in the field and every one of them got in immediately. Besides this, a lot of my papers had lots of press attention. Many people in our group are more focused on quantity so they also collaborate with a people from other universities who have the same mind set. For some reason, I'm not so interested in this approach and I'm a real quality freak and therefore do almost everything myself. But my advisors are quite happy with me.

So I'm near the end of my phd. I still really enjoy research but I'm doubting if the whole research community is giving everyone an equal chance. It seems as if it is governed by a group of great researchers from top universities who don't want to get involved with other smaller universities. Let me try to give some examples. Since I attended and presented at some conferences, I start to know people and they start to know me and we briefly talk but it seems as if it stops there. They congratulate me with the great presentation and work and next year they publish something very similar but do not refer my work. Somehow they get away with it (probably because their papers are indeed very good and ). So as a missing ref does not matter that much) As a result, my papers do not get a lot of citations. I do get some requests to review papers for decent conferences but I still get all the crappy papers that are "easy rejects".

In contrast, I see phd students from top universities who are on exactly the same track as me and their papers get a huge amount of citations, they are invited to visit other research labs, are already involved as organizers in these conferences,... This is probably just because more people know there well known advisor, visit their website more often and spot the new work with their phd students.

Since many of these people have the same age and are interested in the same stuff as me, we talk fairly often and they are almost friends. When I talk to more senior people at conferences, oftentimes, they start to ask which university I'm from and who I work with. Then they react quite strange when I answer, it gets awkward and we stop talking.

So now I'm near the end of my phd and despite the papers that I have my h-index is quite low, my network not so big and my recommendation letters probably do not have same value as the once from other universities. Too me it seems as if I pay a big price for not being at a top university whereas I always thought that in science only the quality of your results mattered. I really enjoy doing research and I will probably find some position somewhere. But I feel quite depressed about this.

Anyone who has similar experiences or advice? Do you have to be at a highly reputable university to make true progress in academia? I dont think this is in line with what science ought to be.

Mmm yeah, good point!

It doesn't give people much incentive to share anything! Also add in the much greater ability to get grants if associated with particular universities, and it's easy to see why some institutions can rest on their laurels.
I am also concerned about people piggy-backing on my ideas in my field. Very difficult unless you become an academic hermit.

Thanks for all the replies! It is good to hear that some of you at least recognize my concerns.

I find it quite striking to see that the scientific community is really like that. When I started my PhD, one reason to get involved in accademic research besides that I already enjoyed doing research was that I tought it was a community that cared mostly about quality and content. Before I worked at some companies and I wasn't really interested in the things I saw managers doing e.g. making strategies to sell their crapy stuff.

At some point in my research I really thought that all the struggles I had with comming up with my own ideas, setting up the project and taking the right steps that resulted in high quality publication eventually would pay off. I thought that researchers would eventually recognize that this takes a lot more effort and skill than doing the same thing together with a well known researcher who often just gives their phd student instructions (especially in the beginning). But not convinced about this anymore.

I totally agree with you about the issues of devising your own project, which is what I did. There is a lot of empire building though. Easy enough with "goldilocks" job adverts designed to suit only one person.