2025/04/07 by Y. Lin, Lin, Yiling, Linzhuo Li +3 · 2 citations
Decision Sciences · Social Sciences · #Academic Publishing and Open Access #Digital Libraries (cs.DL) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Innovation, Sustainability, Human-Machine Systems #Social and Information Networks (cs.SI) #scientometrics and bibliometrics research
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2504.04677
openalex publication_date 2025/04/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
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.