Category Archives: ST&I indicators

Combining tech mining and semantic TRIZ for technology assessment: Dye-sensitized solar cell as a case (FULL-TEXT)

Research Examples, ST&I indicators, Strategic planning, Tech mining

In a competitive business environment, an early understanding of the dynamics of technological change is crucial to help policymakers and managers make better-informed decisions. Bibliometric analyses help in studying trends and technological evolution. Tech mining (text analyses of science and technology information resources) enhances Bibliometric analyses. However, more often than not, such analyses focus on a specific technological area, and mainly result in incremental advance forecasts. An analysis of the interconnected dynamics of technology change warrants new approaches for identifying technology emergence, technological substitution, and the influences of vital socioeconomic forces. This paper introduces a unique combination that applies a tech mining and semantic TRIZ as a case study to Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC) technology. This methodological combination brings broader insights to the emergence of DSSC in conjunction with related technologies that affect its progress, enriching the associated technological progression’s empirical characterization.

  • Techmining-semantic TRIZ helps to understand the competition influence among technologies.
  • The understanding of the architectural design, the system, helps to clearly understand the role of the different components.
  • Understanding the components’ role in the system helps to guide the techmining analysis and to understand the different trends.
  • Using the S-AO and not the SAO problem solving, the present work is able to find other competing or not, technologies that help to understand if that will support the emergence of the original or the competing technology.
  • This cross-tech-components have different role in other architectures. Perovskites, enhance silicon solar cells efficiency.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120826 or download FULL-TEXT

Author(s):J.M. Vicente-Gomila, M.A. Artacho-Ramírez, Ma Ting, A.L.Porter
Organization(s):Universitat Politècnica de València, Beijing Institute of Technology, Search Technology
Source: Technological Forecasting and Social Change
Year: 2021

Corporate Engagement with Nanotechnology through Research Publications (FULL-TEXT)

Research Examples, ST&I indicators

Assessing corporate engagement with an emerging technology is essential for understanding the development of research and innovation systems. Corporate publishing is used as a system-level knowledge transfer indicator, but prior literature suggests that publishing can run counter to private sector needs for management of dissemination to ensure appropriability of research benefits. We examine the extent of corporate authorship and collaboration in nanotechnology publications from 2000 to 2019. The analysis identified 53,200 corporate nanotechnology publications. Despite the potential for limits on collaboration with corporate authors, this paper finds that eight out of 10 nanotechnology corporate publications involved authors from multiple organizations and nearly one-third from multiple countries and that these percentages were higher in recent years. The USA is the leading nation in corporate nanotechnology publishing, followed by Japan and Germany, with China ranking fourth, albeit with the greatest publication growth rate. US corporate publishing is more highly cited and less cross-nationally collaborative. Asian countries also have fewer collaborative authorship ties outside of their home countries. European countries had more corporate collaborations with authors affiliated with organizations outside of their home countries. The paper concludes that distinguishing corporate publications, while difficult due to challenges in identifying small- and medium-sized corporations and grouping variations in corporate names, can be beneficial to examining national systems of research and development

Link to FULL-TEXT https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350580880_Corporate_engagement_with_nanotechnology_through_research_publications

Author(s): Jan Youtie, Robert Ward, Philip Shapira, Alan L. Porter, Nils Newman
Organizaton(s): Georgia Institute of Technology, Search Technology
Source: Journal of Nanoparticle Research
Year: 2021

Profiling and predicting the problem-solving patterns in China’s research systems: A methodology of intelligent bibliometrics and empirical insights (FULL-TEXT)

Network analysis, Research Examples, Research profiling, Research Type, ST&I indicators, Strategic planning

Uncovering the driving forces, strategic landscapes, and evolutionary mechanisms of China’s research systems is attracting rising interest around the globe. One such interest is to understand the problem-solving patterns in China’s research systems now and in the future. Targeting a set of high-quality research articles published by Chinese researchers between 2009 and 2018, and indexed in the Essential Science Indicators database, we developed an intelligent bibliometrics-based methodology for identifying the problem-solving patterns from scientific documents. Specifically, science overlay maps incorporating link prediction were used to profile China’s disciplinary interactions and predict potential cross-disciplinary innovation at a macro level. We proposed a function incorporating word embedding techniques to represent subjects, actions, and objects (SAO) retrieved from combined titles and abstracts into vectors and constructed a tri-layer SAO network to visualize SAOs and their semantic relationships. Then, at a micro level, we developed network analytics for identifying problems and solutions from the SAO network, and recommending potential solutions for existing problems. Empirical insights derived from this study provide clues to understand China’s research strengths and the science policies beneath them, along with the key research problems and solutions Chinese researchers are focusing on now and might pursue in the future.

FULL-TEXT available at https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/qss_a_00100

Author(s): Yi Zhang, Mengjia Wu, Zhengyin Hu, Robert Ward, Xue Zhang, Alan Porter
Organization(s): University of Technology Sydney, Chengdu Library and Information Centre (CAS), Georgia Institute of Technology
Source: Quantitative Science Studies
Year: 2020

Interdisciplinary knowledge combinations and emerging technological topics: Implications for reducing uncertainties in research evaluation (FULL-TEXT)

Research Examples, ST&I indicators

This article puts forth a new indicator of emerging technological topics as a tool for addressing challenges inherent in the evaluation of interdisciplinary research. We present this indicator and test its relationship with interdisciplinary and atypical research combinations. We perform this test by using metadata of scientific publications in three domains with different interdisciplinarity challenges: Nano-Enabled Drug Delivery, Synthetic Biology, and Autonomous Vehicles. Our analysis supports the connection between technological emergence and interdisciplinarity and atypicality in knowledge combinations. We further find that the contributions of interdisciplinary and atypical knowledge combinations to addressing emerging technological topics increase or stay constant over time. Implications for policymakers and contributions to the literature on interdisciplinarity and evaluation are provided.

doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvaa029

FULL-TEXTDownload

Author(s): Seokbeom Kwon, Jan Youtie, and Alan L. Porter
Organization(s): The University of Tokyo, Georgia Institute of Technology
Source: Research Evaluation
Year: 2020

Framework of Computational Intelligence-Enhanced Knowledge Base Construction: Methodology and A Case of Gene-Related Cardiovascular Disease (FULL-TEXT)

Research Examples, ST&I indicators, Strategic planning

Knowledge base construction (KBC) aims to populate knowledge bases with high-quality information from unstructured data but how to effectively conduct KBC from scientific documents with limited preknowledge is still elusive. This paper proposes a KBC framework by applying computational intelligent techniques through the integration of intelligent bibliometrics—e.g., co-occurrence analysis is used for profiling research topics/domains and identifying key players, and recommending potential collaborators based on the incorporation of a link prediction approach; an approach of scientific evolutionary pathways is exploited to trace the evolution of research topics; and a search engine incorporating with fuzzy logics, word embedding, and genetic algorithm is developed for knowledge searching and ranking. Aiming to examine and demonstrate the reliability of the proposed framework, a case of gene-related cardiovascular diseases is selected, and a knowledge base is constructed, with the validation of domain experts.

For FULL-TEXT https://doi.org/10.2991/ijcis.d.200728.001

Author(s): Yi Zhang, Mengjia Wu, Hua Lin, Steven Tipper, Mark Grosser, Guangquan Zhang, Jie Lu
Organization(s): University of Technology Sydney, 23 Strands
Source: International Journal of Computational Intelligence Systems
Year: 2020

Probing Expert Opinions on the Future of Kidney Replacement Therapies

Literature Based Discovery, Network analysis, Research Examples, Research Type, ST&I indicators

Patients with kidney failure can only survive with some form of kidney replacement (transplant or dialysis). Unfortunately, innovations in kidney replacement therapy lag behind many other medical fields. This study compiles expert opinions on candidate technologies for future kidney replacement therapies. A worldwide web‐based survey was conducted with 1,566 responding experts, identified via a text-mining process of scientific publications on kidney (renal) replacement therapy, indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection (period 2014‐2019). Candidate innovative approaches were categorized in line with the Kidney Health Initiative roadmap for innovative kidney replacement therapies. Most respondents expected a revolution in kidney replacement therapies: 68.59% before 2040 and 24.85% after 2040, while 6.56% expected none. Approaches anticipated as most likely were implantable artificial kidneys (38.6%) and wearable artificial kidneys (32.4%). A majority of experts expect that kidney replacement therapies can be significantly improved by innovative technologies.

https://doi.org/10.1111/aor.13784

Author(s): Bernardo Pereira Cabral, Joseph V. Bonventre , Fokko Wieringa , Fabio Batista Mota
Organization(s): Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Harvard Medical School, Maastricht University
Source: Artificial Organs                                                                                              Year: 2020

Exploring Technology Evolution Pathways to Facilitate Technology Management: From a Technology Life Cycle Perspective

Future-oriented technology analysis, Research Examples, ST&I indicators

Technological innovation is a dynamic process that spans the life cycle of an idea, from scientific research to production. Within this process, there are often a few key innovations that significantly impact a technology’s development, and the ability to identify and trace the development of these key innovations comes with a great payoff for researchers and technology managers. In this article, we present a framework for identifying the technology’s main evolutionary pathway. What is unique about this framework is that we introduce new indicators that reflect the connectivity and the modularity in the interior citation network to distinguish between the stages of a technology’s development. We also show how information about a family of patents can be used to build a comprehensive patent citation network. Finally, we apply integrated approaches of main path analysis (MPA)—namely global MPA and global key-route main analysis—for extracting technological trajectories at different technological stages. We illustrate this approach with dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), a low-cost solar cell belonging to the group of thin-film solar cells, contributing to the remarkable growth in the renewable energy industry. The results show how this approach can trace the main development trajectory of a research field and distinguish key technologies to help decision makers manage the technological stages of their innovation processes more effectively.

For source 10.1109/TEM.2020.2966171

Author(s): Ying Huang, Fujin Zhu, Alan L. Porter, Yi Zhang, Donghua Zhu, Ying Guo
Organization(s): Wuhan University, Beijing Institute of Technology, University of Technology Sydney, China University of Political Science and Law
Source: IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management
Year: 2020

Technological Convergence: The Analysis of Emergent Topics on Chitosan (FULL-TEXT)

Research Examples, Research profiling, Research Type, ST&I indicators

This research identifies emergent topical trends of chitosan technology and its applications and constructs technological directions for business strategy in a hyper-competitive environment. A total of 2,612 scientific papers on chitosan technology published between 2010 and 2019 was retrieved from Web of Science (WoS) using various search queries. Results from ibliometric predictive intelligence (BPI) modelling highlight four major emergent topics related to technology convergence, namely shelf life, regenerative medicine, therapeutic agents, and antioxidant capacities. Four potential industries for chitosan application were identified: healthcare; cosmetics; agriculture; and food and beverages. The findings reveal a 75% increase in research publications since 2016 compared with previous years, which in turn illustrates the potential of technological goals to stimulate socially responsible research in the future.

For FULL-TEXT click HERE

Author(s): Worasak Klongthong, Nongnuj Muangsin, Chupun Gowanit, Veera Muangsin
Organization: Chulalongkorn University
Source: Proceedings: 2020 ISPIM Connects Bangkok – Partnering for an Innovative Community
Year: 2020

The relation between research priorities and societal demands: The case of rice (FULL-TEXT)

Research Examples, ST&I indicators, ST&I policy

To what extent is scientific research related to societal needs? To answer this crucial question systematically we need to contrast indicators of research priorities with indicators of societal needs. We focus on rice research and technology between 1983 and 2012. We combine quantitative methods that allow investigation of the relation between ‘revealed’ research priorities and ‘revealed’ societal demands, measured respectively by research output (publications) and national accounts of rice use and farmers’ and consumers’ rice-related needs. We employ new bibliometric data, methods and indicators to identify countries’ main rice research topics (priorities) from publications. For a panel of countries, we estimate the relation between revealed research priorities and revealed demands. We find that, across countries and time, societal demands explain a country’s research trajectory to a limited extent. Some research priorities are nicely aligned to societal demands, confirming that science is partly related to societal needs. However, we find a relevant number of misalignments between the focus of rice research and revealed demands, crucially related to human consumption and nutrition. We discuss some implications for research policy.

As winner of the October 2019 Elsevier Atlas Award, FULL-TEXT is available at  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2018.10.027

Author(s): Tommaso Ciarli, Ismael Ràfols
Organization(s): SPRU (Science Policy Research Unit), University of Sussex; Universitat Politècnica València
Source: Research Policy
Year: 2019

Evaluating technological emergence using text analytics: two case technologies and three approaches (FULL-TEXT)

Research Examples, ST&I indicators

Scientometric methods have long been used to identify technological trajectories, but we have seldom seen reproducible methods that allow for the identification of a technological emergence in a set of documents. This study evaluates the use of three different reproducible approaches for identifying the emergence of technological novelties in scientific publications. The selected approaches are term counting technique, the emergence score (EScore) and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). We found that the methods provide somewhat distinct perspectives on technological. The term count based method identifies detailed emergence patterns. EScore is a complex bibliometric indicator that provides a holistic view of emergence by considering several parameters, namely term frequency, size, and origin of the research community. LDA traces emergence at the thematic level and provides insights on the linkages between emerging research topics. The results suggest that term counting produces results practical for operational purposes, while LDA offers insight at a strategic level.

For FULL-TEXT https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-019-03275-w

Author(s): Samira Ranaei, Arho Suominen, Alan Porter, Stephen Carley

Organization(s): VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Search Technology

Source: Scientometrics

Year: 2019