Qualifying threshold of take off stage for successfully disseminated creative ideas

TL;DR

This study analyzes the early dissemination thresholds of highly cited research papers, revealing typical citation timelines and factors influencing rapid citation accumulation across disciplines.

Contribution

It applies Rogers' diffusion theory to identify citation thresholds and timing for highly cited papers, highlighting discipline and reference patterns affecting dissemination.

Findings

Most highly cited papers reach 10% citations within 2 years.

Discipline influences time to reach citation thresholds.

More recent references correlate with faster citation accumulation.

Abstract

The creative process is essentially Darwinian and only a small proportion of creative ideas are selected for further development. However, the threshold that identifies this small fraction of successfully disseminated creative ideas at their early stage has not been thoroughly analyzed through the lens of Rogers innovation diffusion theory. Here, we take highly cited (top 1%) research papers as an example of the most successfully disseminated creative ideas and explore the time it takes and citations it receives at their take off stage, which play a crucial role in the dissemination of creativity. Results show the majority of highly cited papers will reach 10% and 25% of their total citations within two years and four years, respectively. Interestingly, our results also present a minimal number of articles that attract their first citation before publication. As for the discipline, number of references, and Price index, we find a significant difference exists: Clinical, Pre-Clinical & Health and Life Sciences are the first two disciplines to reach the C10% and C25% in a shorter amount of time. Highly cited papers with limited references usually take more time to reach 10% and 25% of their total citations. In addition, highly cited papers will attract citations rapidly when they cite more recent references. These results provide insights into the timespan and citations for a research paper to become highly cited at the take off stage in its diffusion process, as well as the factors that may influence it.