Parallel session 1, Monday 19 September

1. Identifying High-Impact and
Transformative Science (HITS)
Jerry Marschke and Huifeng Yu (SUNY Albany);
Katy Bӧrner and Robert Preston Light (Indiana
U); Bruce Weinberg and Joseph Staudt and (Ohio
State U)

2. Transformative Work
The vast majority of scientific understanding
advances incrementally…. Less frequently, scientific
understanding advances dramatically, through the
application of radically different approaches or
interpretations that result in the creation of new
paradigms or new scientific fields. This progress is
revolutionary, for it transforms science by
overthrowing entrenched paradigms and
generating new ones. (National Science Board
[2007])
2

4. Importance
• Interest in supporting transformative versus
incremental work at NSF, NIH, Universities,…
• Identify factors that generate transformation
– Networks, demographics, funding,…
• Predict what work will be transformative?
• Apply methods to broader / corpa with data?
• Ultimately measure value for health
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5. Transformative Work
• We develop metrics to identify transformative
work:
– We apply
• Text analysis
• Rich characterization of citation patterns from WOS
– To 11M+ articles in MEDLINE from 1983-2012
– At the level of fields (applicable to articles)
• Validate and develop visualizations to
communicate to subject matter experts
5

6. Metrics
1. Radical - Generates New Paradigms and Scientific Fields
Introduction and use of heavily-used new concepts
2. Radical - Destructive
Age of backward citations
3. Risky
Variance of Forward Citations
4. Multidisciplinary
Breadth of articles (citations) and concepts used
5. Wide Impact
Breadth of forward citations and concepts introduced
6. Growing Impact
Time to forward citations
7. High Impact
Forward citation counts

7. Aspects of Transformativeness Related
to Impact and Transformativeness

8. Citations Related to Impact and
Transformativeness

9. Patterns
• Radical Generative and Destructive weakly
related
– New ideas can be born without obsolescence
• Multi-disciplinarity and wide impact related
• Multi-disciplinarity weakly related to impact
• Transformative work has shorter forward
citation ages
– Impactful over time, but even more so soon

10. Impact v Transformativeness

11. Findings
• Cohesive indicators for transformative work;
correlated (.4) with, but distinct, from impact
– Extreme high impact related to transformative
• People flow into transformative fields
• “Young fields” are more transformative; “Old
fields” are higher impact
• Currently working on validation
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12. Collaborators
• Katy Borner, IU
• Robert Light, IU
• Gerald Marschke,
Albany
• Joe Staudt, OSU /
Census
• Huifeng Yu, Albany
• Bruce Weinberg, Ohio
State,
weinberg.27@osu.edu