Innovations in Hydrologic Research: Lessons from the World of Business

This paper is designed to help readers understand the state of innovation in hydrologic research and relevant lessons from the popular literature of business. We use citations to a paper as a measure of the impact in an area of research. Looking at the citations to all papers for a given year in a journal, they follow a power-law relationship, poorly cited papers being common and highly cited papers being rare. The power law develops because the selection of papers to cite is being biased by the citations of others. Quite remarkably, the slopes of these power laws are the same from journal to journal. Research strands have a life cycle that begins with an important, paradigm-shifting paper. Early papers that also contribute to an emerging research strand are usually well cited. As the number of papers in a strand increases, their impact begins to fall off. Eventually, interest in the strand wanes and researchers drift off to the next opportunity. It is essential for scientists to understand where their research lies in terms of a growth curve and to reposition it as needed. The business literature is clear that success stems from innovation rather than copycat products, with anticipation as a necessary ingredient. Informal indications are that most research scientists are content in their mediocrity. Knowing that a research line is not impacting seems not of a reason to change it. We do not understand the reasons why.