The geography of novel and atypical research

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Ke, Qing, Pan, Tianxing, Mao, Jin
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Ke, Qing
Pan, Tianxing
Mao, Jin
author_facet Ke, Qing
Pan, Tianxing
Mao, Jin
contents The production of knowledge has become increasingly a global endeavor. Yet, location related factors, such as local working environment and national policy designs, may continue to affect what kind of science is being pursued. Here we examine the geography of the production of creative science by country, through the lens of novelty and atypicality proposed in Uzzi et al. (2013). We quantify a country's representativeness in novel and atypical science, finding persistent differences in propensity to generate creative works, even among developed countries that are large producers in science. We further cluster countries based on how their tendency to publish novel science changes over time, identifying one group of emerging countries. Our analyses point out the recent emergence of China not only as a large producer in science but also as a leader that disproportionately produces more novel and atypical research. Discipline specific analysis indicates that China's over-production of atypical science is limited to a few disciplines, especially its most prolific ones like materials science and chemistry.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_20827
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The geography of novel and atypical research
Ke, Qing
Pan, Tianxing
Mao, Jin
Physics and Society
Computers and Society
Digital Libraries
The production of knowledge has become increasingly a global endeavor. Yet, location related factors, such as local working environment and national policy designs, may continue to affect what kind of science is being pursued. Here we examine the geography of the production of creative science by country, through the lens of novelty and atypicality proposed in Uzzi et al. (2013). We quantify a country's representativeness in novel and atypical science, finding persistent differences in propensity to generate creative works, even among developed countries that are large producers in science. We further cluster countries based on how their tendency to publish novel science changes over time, identifying one group of emerging countries. Our analyses point out the recent emergence of China not only as a large producer in science but also as a leader that disproportionately produces more novel and atypical research. Discipline specific analysis indicates that China's over-production of atypical science is limited to a few disciplines, especially its most prolific ones like materials science and chemistry.
title The geography of novel and atypical research
topic Physics and Society
Computers and Society
Digital Libraries
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.20827