The Disruption Index Measures Displacement Between a Paper and Its Most Cited Reference
Fuente:
arXiv
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1866910905237766144 |
|---|---|
| author | Lin, Yiling Li, Linzhuo Wu, Lingfei |
| author_facet | Lin, Yiling Li, Linzhuo Wu, Lingfei |
| contents | Initially developed to capture technical innovation and later adapted to identify scientific breakthroughs, the Disruption Index (D-index) offers the first quantitative framework for analyzing transformative research. Despite its promise, prior studies have struggled to clarify its theoretical foundations, raising concerns about potential bias. Here, we show that-contrary to the common belief that the D-index measures absolute innovation-it captures relative innovation: a paper's ability to displace its most-cited reference. In this way, the D-index reflects scientific progress as the replacement of older answers with newer ones to the same fundamental question-much like light bulbs replacing candles. We support this insight through mathematical analysis, expert surveys, and large-scale bibliometric evidence. To facilitate replication, validation, and broader use, we release a dataset of D-index values for 49 million journal articles (1800-2024) based on OpenAlex. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_04677 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The Disruption Index Measures Displacement Between a Paper and Its Most Cited Reference Lin, Yiling Li, Linzhuo Wu, Lingfei Digital Libraries Social and Information Networks Initially developed to capture technical innovation and later adapted to identify scientific breakthroughs, the Disruption Index (D-index) offers the first quantitative framework for analyzing transformative research. Despite its promise, prior studies have struggled to clarify its theoretical foundations, raising concerns about potential bias. Here, we show that-contrary to the common belief that the D-index measures absolute innovation-it captures relative innovation: a paper's ability to displace its most-cited reference. In this way, the D-index reflects scientific progress as the replacement of older answers with newer ones to the same fundamental question-much like light bulbs replacing candles. We support this insight through mathematical analysis, expert surveys, and large-scale bibliometric evidence. To facilitate replication, validation, and broader use, we release a dataset of D-index values for 49 million journal articles (1800-2024) based on OpenAlex. |
| title | The Disruption Index Measures Displacement Between a Paper and Its Most Cited Reference |
| topic | Digital Libraries Social and Information Networks |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.04677 |