Bias against Novelty in Science: A Cautionary Tale for Users of Bibliometric Indicators

Wang, Jian; Veugelers, Reinhilde; Stephan, Paula E.

doi:10.3386/w22180

Cited by 24 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…The highest-impact science is primarily grounded in conventional combinations of prior work, yet it simultaneously features unusual combinations (25–27). Papers of this type are twice as likely to receive high citations (26).…”

Section: Noveltymentioning

confidence: 99%

Science of science

Fortunato

Bergstrom

Börner

et al. 2018

Science

996

709

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BACKGROUND The increasing availability of digital data on scholarly inputs and outputs—from research funding, productivity, and collaboration to paper citations and scientist mobility—offers unprecedented opportunities to explore the structure and evolution of science. The science of science (SciSci) offers a quantitative understanding of the interactions among scientific agents across diverse geographic and temporal scales: It provides insights into the conditions underlying creativity and the genesis of scientific discovery, with the ultimate goal of developing tools and policies that have the potential to accelerate science. In the past decade, SciSci has benefited from an influx of natural, computational, and social scientists who together have developed big data–based capabilities for empirical analysis and generative modeling that capture the unfolding of science, its institutions, and its workforce. The value proposition of SciSci is that with a deeper understanding of the factors that drive successful science, we can more effectively address environmental, societal, and technological problems. ADVANCES Science can be described as a complex, self-organizing, and evolving network of scholars, projects, papers, and ideas. This representation has unveiled patterns characterizing the emergence of new scientific fields through the study of collaboration networks and the path of impactful discoveries through the study of citation networks. Microscopic models have traced the dynamics of citation accumulation, allowing us to predict the future impact of individual papers. SciSci has revealed choices and trade-offs that scientists face as they advance both their own careers and the scientific horizon. For example, measurements indicate that scholars are risk-averse, preferring to study topics related to their current expertise, which constrains the potential of future discoveries. Those willing to break this pattern engage in riskier careers but become more likely to make major breakthroughs. Overall, the highest-impact science is grounded in conventional combinations of prior work but features unusual combinations. Last, as the locus of research is shifting into teams, SciSci is increasingly focused on the impact of team research, finding that small teams tend to disrupt science and technology with new ideas drawing on older and less prevalent ones. In contrast, large teams tend to develop recent, popular ideas, obtaining high, but often short-lived, impact. OUTLOOK SciSci offers a deep quantitative understanding of the relational structure between scientists, institutions, and ideas because it facilitates the identification of fundamental mechanisms responsible for scientific discovery. These interdisciplinary data-driven efforts complement contributions from related fields such as sciento-metrics and the economics and sociology of science. Although SciSci seeks long-standing universal laws and mechanisms that apply across various fields of science, a fundamental challenge going forward is accounting for un...

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Section: Noveltymentioning

confidence: 99%

Science of science

Fortunato

Bergstrom

Börner

et al. 2018

Science

996

709

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…He finds that, while combinations made among rarely combined elements are associated on average with more uneven and less useful outcomes, at the same time they are associated with the likelihood of achieving extreme outcomes, including breakthroughs. A recent study of Wang et al () finds a consistent result for published scientific research.…”

Section: International Mobility Innovation and Performancementioning

(Expert classified)

“…It is common for scientists to pursue research on long‐term projects and known areas of investigation, because this allows them to exploit the background knowledge, strategies and mental models acquired during prior research. A recent work estimates that a maximum of 11 per cent of the scientific papers in all subjects in 2001 could be considered creative, based on making novel knowledge combinations (Wang et al, ). It is less common for scientists to engage in entirely new streams of investigation, or to address themes where prior knowledge is extremely limited, or to tackle problems with an entirely new strategy.…”

Section: International Mobility Innovation and Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

Context Factors and the Performance of Mobile Individuals in Research Teams

Franzoni

Scellato

Stephan

2017

J Management Studies

Self Cite

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We use survey data for 4336 scientific teams, located in 16 countries, where all members were working within a single lab, to test three context factors that potentially affect the capability of internationally mobile individuals to enhance the innovation performance of their research units. We formulate hypotheses on context factors rooted in the knowledge recombination and learning-by hiring theories. The results show that three context factors are positively associated with international mobility and the performance of the research units: the degree to which knowledge in the relevant subfield of science is geographically concentrated, the creative intent of the activities performed and the decision power of the mobile individual.

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“…Some extreme papers, labeled 'sleeping beauties, ' accumulated few citations for decades and then suddenly peaked-presumably because an important application for the research occurred at a much later date. Likewise, some of the most novel papers tend to languish for years in less prestigious journals but are eventually recognized by other fields for their original contributions and eventually become highly cited (Wang, Veugelers & Stephan 2016). Generally speaking, using short-term citations as a metric for assessing research is a bad idea.…”

Section: Valuation By Knowledge Outputmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the Benefits of Research

2020

Dangerous Science Science: Policy and Risk Analysis for Scientists and Engineers

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Writing a book requires a substantial time commitment, and I would like to thank my family for their patience. It also requires resources, and I would like to thank Stony Brook University and the Department of Technology and Society in particular for its support. Thanks also goes out to David Tonjes for his helpful advice and Scott Ferson for his gracious support and instructive discussions regarding the nature of risk and the measurement of uncertainty. I must also express my deep gratitude to the late David Ferguson, instrumental in my academic career, who imparted kindness and wisdom in equal measure. Finally, I would like to thank Sheldon Reaven for our numerous conversations on the philosophy of science, science policy, and opera. The value of his insightful comments has been exceeded only by the value of his friendship. This book has also benefitted from the insightful peer review comments provided by Professor Frederic Emmanuel Bouder. Case Study: H5N1 Influenza Research Debate Media coverage of the latest scientific discoveries and technological innovations is usually enthusiastic. Long-standing questions are answered, productivity is increased, health is improved, and our standard of living is raised-all due to modern science and human ingenuity. However, sometimes the results of research can also inspire public fear and outrage. Let us consider a recent example. In September 2011, Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier announced at a conference in Malta that his research team had recently engineered a version of the H5N1 1 avian influenza virus that was highly transmissible between mammals. Shortly thereafter, virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin presented results from a similar study. The subsequent media coverage scared the general public and set off demands for a review of how science research is assessed, funded, and managed. Why would these studies be so scary? The reason centers on the lethal potential of influenza and the H5N1 virus in particular. An influenza pandemic typically occurs when a flu virus substantially different from circulating viruses mutates to become easily transmissible between humans. The combination of 1 The formal naming convention for influenza viruses includes the antigenic type (A, B, or C); the originating host (e.g., swine); the geographical origin; year of identification; strain number; or for type A viruses, the specific subtypes of two surface proteins, hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N) (e.g., H5N1) (Assaad et al. 1980). Given the complexity of formal names, popular shorthand names, such as Spanish flu, Swine flu, and H1N1 can potentially be referring to the same influenza virus. The World Health Organization has been working to improve shorthand names to make them less stigmatizing and more informative.

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Bias against Novelty in Science: A Cautionary Tale for Users of Bibliometric Indicators

Cited by 24 publications

References 35 publications

Science of science

Science of science

Context Factors and the Performance of Mobile Individuals in Research Teams

Assessing the Benefits of Research

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