Key criteria for research originality is that the researcher be the product of the researcher's work and ideas. Taking a new spin an someone else's topic would still count as original if the researcher conceived the new idea; there are no true 100 percent original ideas.

Key criteria for research originality is that the researcher be the product of the researcher's work and ideas. Taking a new spin an someone else's topic would still count as original if the researcher conceived the new idea; there are no true 100 percent original ideas.

Originality means that at least something has to be new, or very new. Unfortunately, most careers appear not to be based on original ideas, but more on who your father is. Of course that doesn't exclude that the professional sons have always to be less creative than others.

Its all about the game of uniqueness, rationality, edges, techniques and interpretation of results. Like Insulin was discovered since long time ago. But many researchers are still working on that ligand receptor. So therefore its mainly a technique, uniqueness employed and rationality of your work which is more important.

I see two opposing concepts in scientific careers: 1) the genuine researcher, who wants to really change the world with totally new ideas and concepts, that new, that he/she is decades ahead of others - unfortunately, they have a hard time to get their ideas accepted and the support; 2) the science manager, without any creativity to own ideas, usually just jumping from one popular field into the next, never really contributing anything really new - they can become the head of a research center, publishing hundreds of useless papers, citing themselves and getting cited by their coauthors tens of thousands of times - withour ever contributing anything scientifically really important. Of course, I am type 1. My biggest breakthrough was confirming my crazy postulates, that it was indeed possible to measure the physiologic activation of single integrin receptors by a chemokine and to measure this with an AFM. Unfortunately, my collaborators just overtook my project...

It's the reality that I noticed also during my career, the majority are type 2. . However type 1 is what makes someones feel a researcher. I mean a real researcher who is motivated and looks to problems that should be solved by science. When this ambitious attitude is in a researcher it leads him/her to think originally, creatively and most of his time in the answer "at the point of neglecting his personal and professional objectives some times" Realizing ones creatives ideas can be difficult or even impossible if he/she works in a non creative institution, it makes feel that your thinking is put in jail. If a researcher plans to realize a research which is else's topic but not the same objective, he/she will fall in interest conflict problem. That's what I faced when I decided to study on the same biological material from different point of view, a new idea of looking at this material.

But I always consider originality the mains value in research

@Eibl, i love the classification you make between the types of researchers; this is very true. Often the researchers that the public perceives as "great scientists" are type 2. This is especially true with authors of these new science books.

Richard Hawkins/Stephen Hawking comes to mind when I think of type 2; people view them in the same light as Francis Crick, but what have they really discovered?

According to the University of Melbourne - Academic Skills (www.services.unimelb.edu.au/academicskills), the followings are some criteria which may merit "originality"

• Presenting a major piece of new information in writing for the first time
• Extending, qualifying or elaborating on an existing piece of work
• Undertaking an original piece of work designed by someone else
• Developing a new product or improving an existing one
• Reinterpreting an existing theory, maybe in a different context
• Demonstrating originality by testing someone else’s idea
• Carrying out empirical work that has not been done before
• Using a different methodological approach to address a problem
• Synthesizing information in a new or different way
• Providing a new interpretation using existing / known information
• Repeating research in other contexts, for example, a different country
• Applying existing ideas to new areas of study
• Taking a particular technique and applying it in a new area
• Developing a new research tool or technique
• Taking a different approach, for example a cross-disciplinary perspective
• Developing a portfolio of work based on research
• Adding to knowledge in a way that has not previously been done before
• Conducting a study on a previously unresearched area or topic
• Producing a critical analysis of something not previously examine

I hope this help.

www.services.unimelb.edu.au/academicskills

Of course the originality of the academic paper include interpreting known idea in a new approach

Originality is a about identifying a gap in existing literature and providing generally acceptable solution.

Original manuscripts should be free of all types of plagiarism. The following infograph can help in understanding various types of plagiarism.

https://hub.wiley.com/community/exchanges/discover/blog/2016/02/02/10-types-of-plagiarism-in-research

My answer to your other question " If someone wants to work on research topic. It should be original but sometimes other researchers have already worked on the same topic with a different approach. Can this difference be sufficient to say that it’s an original work?" is Yes as the different approach is a clear distinction, and it is a clue of the originality.