Creative accomplishments in science: definition, theoretical considerations, examples from science history, and bibliometric findings

Science studies have not yet provided a conceptual scheme that distinguishes creative accomplishments from other research contributions. Likewise, there is no commonly agreed typology capturing all important manifestations of innovative science. This article takes up these two desiderata. We argue that scientific creativity springs from the fundamental tension between originality and scientific relevance. Based on this consideration, we introduce a conceptual scheme that singles out creative research accomplishments from other contributions in science. Furthermore, this paper shows that creative contributions are not only advances in theory but also new methods, new empirical phenomena, and the development of new research instrumentation. For illustrative purposes, the article introduces examples from science history and presents results from bibliometric studies.