Revisiting the disruptive index: evidence from the Nobel Prize-winning articles

In the last two decades, scholars have designed various types of bibliographic-related indicators to identify breakthrough-class academic achievements. In this study, we take a step further to look at the performance of the promising disruptive index (DI) in reference (Wu et al. in Nature 566(7744):378-382, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-0941-9 , 2019), thus deepening our understanding of the DI and further facilitating its wise use in bibliometrics. Using publication records for Nobel laureates between 1900 and 2016, we calculate the DI of Nobel Prize-winning articles and benchmark articles from each year, use the median and mean DI to denote the central tendency in each year, and analyze the variation of the DI since publication. We find that Nobel Prize-winning articles are not necessarily more disruptive than benchmark articles. Results based on DI depend on the length of their citation time window, and different citation time windows may cause different, even controversial, results. As a result, research assessment should balance between short- & long-term scientific impact; Also, discipline and time play a role in the length of the citation window when using DI to measure the innovativeness of scientific work. The study also discusses potential research directions around DI.