# Frontier > A free, live index of the latest scientific discoveries and breakthroughs, each scored 0-100 on evidence, impact, and novelty, with every score sourced. Frontier is a science-backed, evidence-scored public index of breakthrough research and technology. Every entry carries a transparent Frontier Score from 0 to 100, and every score decomposes to the sources behind it. ## The Frontier Score The composite is: integrity x frontier recency x (0.25 x Evidence + 0.25 x Impact + 0.50 x Novelty). - Evidence (25% of composite): How established and verifiable the result is. - Impact (25% of composite): How much the result matters, judged field-relative and by current momentum. - Novelty (50% of composite): How genuinely new the result is, and how fast-moving. A frontier-recency multiplier discounts a result's standing as it settles into established practice (full when new; the part above a floor of 0.5 halves every 8 months, so it never falls below 0.5), so the active edge stays on top. A retraction collapses the score to zero. Confidence (Settled, Firming up, or Early signal) is reported separately from the score, so novelty is never mistaken for certainty. Impact is anchored on field-relative measures (field-weighted citation impact, the field-and-year percentile and, for biomedicine, the NIH iCite Relative Citation Ratio), together with citations in the last twelve months and influential citations; a work's total citation count is not used. Data is cross-checked across up to thirteen independent public sources (OpenAlex, Crossref, Semantic Scholar, OpenCitations, Europe PMC, NIH iCite, Unpaywall, DataCite, arXiv, Wikipedia, Hacker News, ClinicalTrials.gov, NIH RePORTER), and each score is re-checked against those sources on a weekly cadence. New work enters the index daily. The method builds on established measures: field normalization uses OpenAlex FWCI and the NIH iCite Relative Citation Ratio (Hutchins et al., PLoS Biology 2016), and the conceptual-novelty signal adapts the atypical-combination idea of Uzzi, Mukherjee, Stringer and Jones (Science, 2013) to the research topics OpenAlex assigns each work. Frontier's contribution is a transparent, decomposable way of combining these established, peer-reviewed metrics, with every score traceable to its primary records. ## Key pages - [The Frontier Index](/breakthroughs): the full searchable, sortable, filterable catalog. - [Paper check](/check): free FWCI checker for any paper (DOI, link, PubMed or arXiv id, or title): OpenAlex's field-weighted citation impact and citation percentile, citations in five open indexes, and retractions or corrections on record. - [List check](/check/list): the same for up to 25 papers pasted one per line, as one table with the set's mean and median FWCI and a CSV download. - [Researcher check](/check/researcher): a researcher's whole record from an ORCID iD (link a record as /check/researcher?q=, for example /check/researcher?q=0000-0001-9161-999X; a name or an OpenAlex author id also works): every paper's FWCI, citation percentile and citations, the record's mean and median FWCI, papers above world average, top 10% and top 1% papers and an h-index, by period (&from=), with a CSV. Counts the papers on the person's ORCID record and lists what OpenAlex attributes beyond it separately. - [Group check](/check/group): a lab's or a department's citation impact from up to 10 ORCID iDs or names, one per line (link a group as /check/group?q=%0A): each member's papers, mean and median FWCI, share above world average, top 10% papers, h-index and citations side by side, the group's own FWCI with papers members share counted once, its top papers, and CSVs of the members and the papers. - [New this week](/this-week): the papers scored in the last seven days, ranked by Frontier Score, each with its main result in one line; updated with every daily intake. - [Science Breakthroughs This Week: 2-8 November 2026, Scored](/blog/frontier-dispatch-2026-11-09): the newest Frontier Dispatch, the weekly scored roundup of the papers that entered the index, each linked to its paper. - [Latest Scientific Breakthroughs of 2026, Scored and Ranked](/blog/biggest-scientific-breakthroughs-2026-scored): the papers published this year ranked by Frontier Score, field by field, with how the method reads them; rewritten as the index grows. - [Methodology](/methodology): the exact scoring recipe, tiers, and honest limitations. - [Sources](/sources): the thirteen data sources, what each contributes, and live coverage. - [Feed](/feed.xml): RSS, every scored entry as a post (newest first) with its score, editorial and a direct link to the paper. - [API](/api/frontier): open JSON API over the whole index (search, filter by field, one entry with its full score breakdown). - MCP server (/api/mcp): the index as tools for AI assistants over Streamable HTTP, no key needed: search_breakthroughs, latest_breakthroughs, get_breakthrough, list_fields, explain_frontier_score. Listed on the Official MCP Registry as co.frontierresearch/frontier. - [Fields](/fields) - [About](/about)