Abstract: As one of the scientific and technological innovation achievements, an accurate evaluation of the innovation of academic papers is helpful to stimulate the innovation vitality of researchers, guide the direction of scientific research correctly, and improve the quality of scientific research achievements. Innovative knowledge units are the basis for evaluating the innovation of academic papers. Based on the perspective of breakthrough reorganization and progressive reorganization of knowledge units, this study divides the combination of knowledge units into three types: “new knowledge unit-new knowledge unit”, “new knowledge unit-old knowledge unit” and “old knowledge unit-old knowledge unit”. Secondly, based on three types of knowledge unit combination and four aspects of knowledge unit combination emergence, the innovative evaluation model of academic papers is constructed. Taking the field of digital humanities as an example, the empirical research shows that the method can effectively identify the novel knowledge unit combination; the academic papers selected from the perspective of knowledge unit reorganization are highly innovative in terms of research methods and research content.

Key words: Academic evaluation, Innovative evaluation, Knowledge unit reorganization, Breakthrough reorganization, Incremental reorganization