Analyses of publications and patent

Analyses of publications and patents consistently reveal that rare combinations in scientific discoveries and inventions tend to garner higher citation rates (3). Interdisciplinary research is an emblematic recombinant process (19); hence,the successful combination of previously disconnected ideas and resources that is fundamental to interdisciplinary research often violates expectations and leads to novel ideas with high impact (20). Nevertheless, evidence from grant applications shows that, when faced with new ideas, expert evaluators systematically give lower scores to truly novel (21–23) or interdisciplinary (24) research proposals.The highest-impact science is primarily grounded in conventional combinations of prior work, yet it simultaneously features unusual combinations (25–27). Papers of this type are twice as likely to receive high citations (26). In other words, a balanced mixture of new and established elements is the safest path toward successful reception of scientific advances.