Following the combinatorial novelty perspective, novelty in science can be measured by examining whether a publication makes new combinations of referenced journals and how distant are the newly-paired journals to each other.  Using WoS articles in 2001, we study the relationship between novelty and citation impact.  We find that novel research demonstrates a high risk/high gain profile:  Novel papers are more likely to be a top 1% highly cited paper in the long run, to inspire follow on highly cited research, and to be cited in a broader set of disciplines, but at the same display a higher variance in their citations.  We also observe delayed recognition of novel papers which are less likely to be top cited in the short run.  In addition, novel research is more highly cited in “foreign” fields but not in their “home” field.  Finally, novel papers are published in journals with a lower Impact Factor, compared with non-novel papers, ceteris paribus.<br/> <br/>In addition, patent references to the scientific literature provides a paper trail of knowledge flow from science to innovation.  We investigate the relationship between novelty and technological impact.  We find that novel publications are more likely to be directly cited by patents and also indirectly by other scientific publications which are cited by patents.  Within the set of scientific papers cited at least once by patents, there are no additional significant differences in the speed or the intensity of the technological impact between novel and non-novel scientific prior art, but the technological impact from novel science is significantly broader, covering more diverse technological fields and reaching technology fields previously non-impacted.

Novel research and its scientific and technological impact

255th National Meeting (2018)

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