Science October 2013 PMID 24159044

Atypical combinations and scientific impact.

Brian Uzzi, Satyam Mukherjee, Michael Stringer, Ben Jones

Mentions

59
Peak: 14 in Nov 2022
across 5 sources since Oct 2013

Extended reach

253,744
potential audience

Total likes

6,969

Video views

131,984

Mentions per month

Oct 2013 – Nov 2025

Where it's discussed

  • X / Twitter38 posts
  • News15 articles
  • Blogs3 articles
  • YouTube2 videos
  • Instagram1 posts

AI synopsis

What people are saying

The social discussions reveal a consensus that impactful science often involves blending traditional knowledge with a touch of novelty, as shown in remarks about how high-impact papers are grounded in conventional combinations but include unusual elements. Examples include references to empirical data, such as the study analyzing 17.9 million papers, and comments about how interdisciplinary work's effectiveness depends on the extent of shared knowledge. The tone is analytical and slightly enthusiastic, emphasizing the article's relevance and the nuanced view of innovation in science.

AgreementModerate agreement

Most discussions agree with the main finding that impactful research combines conventional and novel elements.

InterestHigh interest

Posts demonstrate high interest by referencing specific details, like how high-impact papers often merge familiar with unusual ideas.

EngagementModerate engagement

Discussions explore methods, implications, and question the relationship between novelty and impact, showing moderate depth.

ImpactModerate impact

The overall tone suggests these social discussions view the article as highlighting significant insights into scientific productivity and innovation.

Abstract in brief

  • The study suggests that impactful scientific ideas often combine mostly conventional knowledge with some unusual or novel elements, making them more likely to be highly cited.
  • Although rare, teams of researchers are significantly more likely than individuals to introduce these novel combinations into familiar scientific areas.
  • Overall, the findings highlight that balancing familiar and unconventional ideas is key to producing influential and innovative scientific research.]

Top posts

Most liked on X and Bluesky
Florian Ederer
@florianederer · X

What papers have the biggest scientific impact? Surprisingly, it's not the most novel papers, but those papers that combine conventional prior work and insert a little bit of novelty. https://t.co/byDv5d2tza https://t.co/X2nLKgl6hb

Nov 26, 2022 · 53 likes · 11 shares · 49,510 followers View post →
Misha Teplitskiy | Science of Science
@MishaTeplitskiy · X

Using peer review data from 49 journals in physical and life sciences, provided by @IOPPublishing and @CellPressNews, and measuring novelty using @UzziLeadership et al. 2013 (https://t.co/J1c2QmafYn ) we ask a simple question ❓Are novel papers easier to publish❓ 3/n

Nov 17, 2022 · 13 likes · 1 share · 8,781 followers View post →
Hossein Alidaee
@halidaee · X

@ben_golub Success is correlated with how much they internalize this result https://t.co/mXINlve1aR

Feb 7, 2022 · 3 likes · 182 followers View post →
Kevin A. Bryan
@Afinetheorem · X

@kearney_melissa Uzzi et al find high-impact research is slightly but not very unusual combos of prior work (https://t.co/l4MKFZp8Mk). Highly interdisciplinary work tends to have too little shared prior knowledge to make big breakthrough. I know no good evidence for the common dean preference.

Feb 3, 2022 · 2 likes · 17,143 followers View post →
Ravi S. Kudesia
@rskudesia · X

@PsychRabble @lakens @Chrismartin76 @NeilLewisJr @ceptional @RogertheGS @BobbiePoPS @CampbellSocProf @chrisdc77 @MattGrossmann Some of these may be relevant: - https://t.co/LXxrNi6Biq - https://t.co/09J5r1IoRa - https://t.co/7lQaQYoXRU - https://t.co/vEIvQti3hd - https://t.co/wASBf6UItY - ISBN: 978-0-585-46389-6 - https://t.co/xC1V1ZOHzN - https://t.co/YFOlSNzczY - https://t.co/YJmbdUEGt9

Feb 14, 2022 · 2 likes · 2,865 followers View post →
Yang Yang
@yang_yang_16 · X

@byrd_nick @UzziLeadership @PNASNews @bfjo @KelloggSchool @NICOatNU @NorthwesternU @NorthwesternEng @ResearchNU That’s a great question, Nick. We measured novelty using two measures in the existing literature. One is the novelty measure per https://t.co/JAGB91aYNg and the other is by topic expertise following the sterling index https://t.co/sb3VklELl6. Our main findings hold for both.

Aug 31, 2022 · 2 likes · 33 followers View post →

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Nick Camp
@tweets_on_camp · X

@Cmwitko I would argue that interdisciplinary work is more likely to get you to those atypical combinations than monodisciplinary team https://t.co/BEV1WfWCuv

Oct 1, 2024 · 405 followers View post →
Tuomas Pernu
@TuomasPernu · X

@EikoFried This is cool: "Our analysis of 17.9 million papers spanning all scientific fields: the highest-impact science is primarily grounded in exceptionally conventional combinations of prior work yet simultaneously features an intrusion of unusual combinations." https://t.co/bn5EzAbpbq

Mar 26, 2024 · 1 like · 2,725 followers View post →
Sven Grüner
@SvenGruener · X

RT @florianederer: What papers have the biggest scientific impact? Surprisingly, it's not the most novel papers, but those papers that com…

Nov 28, 2022 · 11 shares · 55 followers View post →
Álvaro Delgado-Vega
@lvaro_d · X

RT @florianederer: What papers have the biggest scientific impact? Surprisingly, it's not the most novel papers, but those papers that com…

Nov 27, 2022 · 11 shares · 802 followers View post →
Stefan Pichler
@StefanPEcon · X

RT @florianederer: What papers have the biggest scientific impact? Surprisingly, it's not the most novel papers, but those papers that com…

Nov 27, 2022 · 11 shares · 1,428 followers View post →
Simon Mutungi, PhD
@shakamara · X

RT @florianederer: What papers have the biggest scientific impact? Surprisingly, it's not the most novel papers, but those papers that com…

Nov 27, 2022 · 11 shares · 568 followers View post →
Dzhamilya (Jamila) Nigmatulina
@JamilaNigmatul1 · X

RT @florianederer: What papers have the biggest scientific impact? Surprisingly, it's not the most novel papers, but those papers that com…

Nov 27, 2022 · 11 shares · 576 followers View post →
Marek Giebel
@MarekGiebel · X

RT @florianederer: What papers have the biggest scientific impact? Surprisingly, it's not the most novel papers, but those papers that com…

Nov 27, 2022 · 11 shares · 1,787 followers View post →
Bjoern Gehrmann
@BjoernGehrmann · X

RT @florianederer: What papers have the biggest scientific impact? Surprisingly, it's not the most novel papers, but those papers that com…

Nov 27, 2022 · 11 shares · 977 followers View post →
Kris Inwood (@kris-inwood.bsky.social)
@kris_inwood · X

RT @florianederer: What papers have the biggest scientific impact? Surprisingly, it's not the most novel papers, but those papers that com…

Nov 26, 2022 · 11 shares · 4,290 followers View post →
Theodosia Stavroulaki
@TStavroulaki · X

RT @florianederer: What papers have the biggest scientific impact? Surprisingly, it's not the most novel papers, but those papers that com…

Nov 26, 2022 · 11 shares · 967 followers View post →
Oolong Tea Party Express
@DmpLngInYrMth · X

RT @florianederer: What papers have the biggest scientific impact? Surprisingly, it's not the most novel papers, but those papers that com…

Nov 26, 2022 · 11 shares · 83 followers View post →
Richard Kališ
@richard_kalis · X

RT @florianederer: What papers have the biggest scientific impact? Surprisingly, it's not the most novel papers, but those papers that com…

Nov 26, 2022 · 11 shares · 178 followers View post →
Florian Ederer
@florianederer · X

What papers have the biggest scientific impact? Surprisingly, it's not the most novel papers, but those papers that combine conventional prior work and insert a little bit of novelty. https://t.co/byDv5d2tza https://t.co/X2nLKgl6hb

Nov 26, 2022 · 53 likes · 11 shares · 49,510 followers View post →
Luca Borger
@lucaborger · X

RT @MishaTeplitskiy: Using peer review data from 49 journals in physical and life sciences, provided by @IOPPublishing and @CellPressNews,…

Nov 20, 2022 · 1 share · 4,008 followers View post →
Misha Teplitskiy | Science of Science
@MishaTeplitskiy · X

Using peer review data from 49 journals in physical and life sciences, provided by @IOPPublishing and @CellPressNews, and measuring novelty using @UzziLeadership et al. 2013 (https://t.co/J1c2QmafYn ) we ask a simple question ❓Are novel papers easier to publish❓ 3/n

Nov 17, 2022 · 13 likes · 1 share · 8,781 followers View post →
Yang Yang
@yang_yang_16 · X

@byrd_nick @UzziLeadership @PNASNews @bfjo @KelloggSchool @NICOatNU @NorthwesternU @NorthwesternEng @ResearchNU That’s a great question, Nick. We measured novelty using two measures in the existing literature. One is the novelty measure per https://t.co/JAGB91aYNg and the other is by topic expertise following the sterling index https://t.co/sb3VklELl6. Our main findings hold for both.

Aug 31, 2022 · 2 likes · 33 followers View post →
Matt McKinlay
@RaygunIcecream · X

@MikeKra36812131 From this great paper- https://t.co/WxnE4eYr25

Feb 23, 2022 · 1 like · 1,548 followers View post →
Ravi S. Kudesia
@rskudesia · X

@PsychRabble @lakens @Chrismartin76 @NeilLewisJr @ceptional @RogertheGS @BobbiePoPS @CampbellSocProf @chrisdc77 @MattGrossmann Some of these may be relevant: - https://t.co/LXxrNi6Biq - https://t.co/09J5r1IoRa - https://t.co/7lQaQYoXRU - https://t.co/vEIvQti3hd - https://t.co/wASBf6UItY - ISBN: 978-0-585-46389-6 - https://t.co/xC1V1ZOHzN - https://t.co/YFOlSNzczY - https://t.co/YJmbdUEGt9

Feb 14, 2022 · 2 likes · 2,865 followers View post →
Hossein Alidaee
@halidaee · X

@ben_golub Success is correlated with how much they internalize this result https://t.co/mXINlve1aR

Feb 7, 2022 · 3 likes · 182 followers View post →
Kevin A. Bryan
@Afinetheorem · X

@kearney_melissa Uzzi et al find high-impact research is slightly but not very unusual combos of prior work (https://t.co/l4MKFZp8Mk). Highly interdisciplinary work tends to have too little shared prior knowledge to make big breakthrough. I know no good evidence for the common dean preference.

Feb 3, 2022 · 2 likes · 17,143 followers View post →
Hyvä perse!
@inorihamiraihe · X

RT @min0nmin0n: 研究結果の出典元はこちら。1800万件の科学論文のアイデアの形を分析したところ、「既存の知識」と「意外な組み合わせ」がある論文はそうでない論文に比べて2倍以上被引用数が多く、完全に新しい知識の組み合わせは非常に稀だったとのこと https://t…

Jan 31, 2022 · 14 shares · 136 followers View post →
TakeKendai
@Take_Sato · X

RT @min0nmin0n: 研究結果の出典元はこちら。1800万件の科学論文のアイデアの形を分析したところ、「既存の知識」と「意外な組み合わせ」がある論文はそうでない論文に比べて2倍以上被引用数が多く、完全に新しい知識の組み合わせは非常に稀だったとのこと https://t…

Jan 31, 2022 · 14 shares · 4 followers View post →
小峯 敦Atsushi Komine
@komine_124 · X

Atypical Combinations and Scientific Impact https://t.co/4ptY2q65FV

Jan 31, 2022 · 923 followers View post →
おたくら
@otakura6yuki · X

RT @min0nmin0n: 研究結果の出典元はこちら。1800万件の科学論文のアイデアの形を分析したところ、「既存の知識」と「意外な組み合わせ」がある論文はそうでない論文に比べて2倍以上被引用数が多く、完全に新しい知識の組み合わせは非常に稀だったとのこと https://t…

Jan 31, 2022 · 14 shares · 181 followers View post →
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@keepdg581 · X

RT @min0nmin0n: 研究結果の出典元はこちら。1800万件の科学論文のアイデアの形を分析したところ、「既存の知識」と「意外な組み合わせ」がある論文はそうでない論文に比べて2倍以上被引用数が多く、完全に新しい知識の組み合わせは非常に稀だったとのこと https://t…

Jan 31, 2022 · 14 shares · 1,274 followers View post →
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@inkyavanzai · X

RT @min0nmin0n: 研究結果の出典元はこちら。1800万件の科学論文のアイデアの形を分析したところ、「既存の知識」と「意外な組み合わせ」がある論文はそうでない論文に比べて2倍以上被引用数が多く、完全に新しい知識の組み合わせは非常に稀だったとのこと https://t…

Jan 31, 2022 · 14 shares · 258 followers View post →
Sora Nishikawa
@Nskwsky · X

RT @min0nmin0n: 研究結果の出典元はこちら。1800万件の科学論文のアイデアの形を分析したところ、「既存の知識」と「意外な組み合わせ」がある論文はそうでない論文に比べて2倍以上被引用数が多く、完全に新しい知識の組み合わせは非常に稀だったとのこと https://t…

Jan 31, 2022 · 14 shares · 961 followers View post →
Yasuyuki Hashiguchi
@hashiyuki0909 · X

RT @min0nmin0n: 研究結果の出典元はこちら。1800万件の科学論文のアイデアの形を分析したところ、「既存の知識」と「意外な組み合わせ」がある論文はそうでない論文に比べて2倍以上被引用数が多く、完全に新しい知識の組み合わせは非常に稀だったとのこと https://t…

Jan 31, 2022 · 14 shares · 1,309 followers View post →
Go SHOJI 正司豪
@shoji_go · X

RT @min0nmin0n: 研究結果の出典元はこちら。1800万件の科学論文のアイデアの形を分析したところ、「既存の知識」と「意外な組み合わせ」がある論文はそうでない論文に比べて2倍以上被引用数が多く、完全に新しい知識の組み合わせは非常に稀だったとのこと https://t…

Jan 31, 2022 · 14 shares · 581 followers View post →
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@nicole_whitecat · X

RT @min0nmin0n: 研究結果の出典元はこちら。1800万件の科学論文のアイデアの形を分析したところ、「既存の知識」と「意外な組み合わせ」がある論文はそうでない論文に比べて2倍以上被引用数が多く、完全に新しい知識の組み合わせは非常に稀だったとのこと https://t…

Jan 31, 2022 · 14 shares · 290 followers View post →
Misha Teplitskiy | Science of Science
@MishaTeplitskiy · X

@nalanpog @haoopeng @mrblasco @klakhani Good question... a. Novelty measure (we use https://t.co/J1c2QmafYn) - I think yes. IIRC original paper finds effect across fields + measure's been used in a bunch of places since (1/2)

Sep 10, 2021 · 8,781 followers View post →
Lindy Links
@LinksLindy · X

Atypical Combinations and Scientific Impact, 7 years old https://t.co/qxfCiBkceP

Jan 14, 2021 · 306 followers View post →
Lior Noy
@lior_noy · X

this is very nice. and if you don't know the work by Uzzi, super relevant: Uzzi B, Mukherjee S, Stringer M, Jones B (2013) Atypical combinations and scientific impact. Science https://t.co/gYG7vOJwR8

Jun 11, 2020 · 1 like · 406 followers View post →
Milos Djukic
@milosdjukic011 · X

Atypical Combinations and Scientific Impact by Brian Uzzi, Satyam Mukherjee, Michael Stringer, Ben Jones Novelty is an essential feature of creative ideas, yet the building blocks of new ideas are often embodied in existing knowle…https://t.co/ZZLu2dJcKX https://t.co/z63LG8d2Ar

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@niidu · X

Science of making science: Atypical Combinations and Scientific Impact https://t.co/d9OAxC5vBx

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@revistapcyt · X

RT @revistapcyt: Atypical Combinations and Scientific Impact https://t.co/lkzRrISL4A

Feb 11, 2019 · 1 share · 261 followers View post →
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Atypical Combinations and Scientific Impact https://t.co/lkzRrISL4A

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