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Neophilia Ranking of Scientific Journals

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  • Mikko Packalen
  • Jay Bhattacharya

Abstract

The ranking of scientific journals is important because of the signal it sends to scientists about what is considered most vital for scientific progress. Existing ranking systems focus on measuring the influence of a scientific paper (citations)—these rankings do not reward journals for publishing innovative work that builds on new ideas. We propose an alternative ranking based on the proclivity of journals to publish papers that build on new ideas, and we implement this ranking via a text-based analysis of all published biomedical papers dating back to 1946. Our results show that our neophilia ranking is distinct from citation-based rankings. Prior theoretical work suggests an active role for our neophilia index in science policy. Absent an explicit incentive to pursue novel science, scientists under-invest in innovative work because of a coordination problem: for work on a new idea to flourish, many scientists must decide to adopt it in their work. Rankings that are based purely on influence thus do not provide sufficient incentives for publishing innovative work. By contrast, adoption of the neophilia index as part of journal-ranking procedures by funding agencies and university administrators would provide an explicit incentive for journals to publish innovative work and thus help solve the coordination problem by increasing scientists’ incentives to pursue innovative work.

Suggested Citation

  • Mikko Packalen & Jay Bhattacharya, 2015. "Neophilia Ranking of Scientific Journals," NBER Working Papers 21579, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21579
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    Cited by:

    1. Joseph Gerald Hirschberg & Jeanette Ngaire Lye, 2020. "Grading Journals In Economics: The Abcs Of The Abdc," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 876-921, September.
    2. Mikko Packalen, 2019. "Edge factors: scientific frontier positions of nations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(3), pages 787-808, March.
    3. Juan Miguel Campanario, 2018. "Are leaders really leading? Journals that are first in Web of Science subject categories in the context of their groups," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 111-130, April.
    4. Mingyang Wang & Shijia Jiao & Kah-Hin Chai & Guangsheng Chen, 2019. "Building journal’s long-term impact: using indicators detected from the sustained active articles," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(1), pages 261-283, October.
    5. Bornmann, Lutz & Tekles, Alexander & Zhang, Helena H. & Ye, Fred Y., 2019. "Do we measure novelty when we analyze unusual combinations of cited references? A validation study of bibliometric novelty indicators based on F1000Prime data," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4).
    6. Rebecca McKibbin & Bruce A. Weinberg, 2021. "Does Research Save Lives? The Local Spillovers of Biomedical Research on Mortality," NBER Working Papers 29420, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

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