The disruption index in the multiverse: The calculation of scores comes with numerous (hidden) degrees of freedom

Abstract

Following Funk and Owen-Smith (2017), Wu et al. (2019) proposed the disruption index (DI1) as a bibliometric indicator that measures disruptive and consolidating research. When we summarized the literature on the disruption index for our recently published review article (Leibel & Bornmann, 2024), we noticed that the calculation of disruption scores comes with numerous (hidden) degrees of freedom. In this Letter to the Editor, we explain why this analytical flexibility endangers the credibility of bibliometric research based on the DI1 (and its variants) and advertise the application of multiverse-style methods to increase the transparency of the research.