How Do Emerging Technologies Conquer the World?

[Loet Leydesdorff]

How Do Emerging Technologies Conquer the World? 
An Exploration of Patterns of Diffusion and Network Formation


Grasping the fruits of "emerging technologies" is an objective of many
government priority programs in a knowledge-based and globalizing economy.
We use the publication records (in the Science Citation Index) of two
emerging technologies to study the mechanisms of diffusion in the case of
two innovation trajectories: small interference RNA (siRNA) and
nano-crystalline solar cells (NCSC). Methods for analyzing and visualizing
geographical and cognitive diffusion are specified as indicators of
different dynamics. Geographical diffusion is illustrated with overlays to
Google Maps; cognitive diffusion is mapped using an overlay to a map based
on the ISI Subject Categories. The evolving geographical networks show both
preferential attachment and small-world characteristics. The strength of
preferential attachment decreases over time, while the network evolves into
an oligopolistic control structure with small-world characteristics. The
transferability of the research technology in cognitive terms--that is, the
transition from "mode-1" to "mode-2" research--is suggested as the crucial
difference in explaining the different rates of diffusion between siRNA and
NCSC. 


http://arxiv.org/abs/1011.3120 
Authors: Loet Leydesdorff
<http://arxiv.org/find/cs/1/au:+Leydesdorff_L/0/1/0/all/0/1> , Ismael Rafols
<http://arxiv.org/find/cs/1/au:+Rafols_I/0/1/0/all/0/1> 


** apologies for cross-postings

  _____  

Loet Leydesdorff 

Professor, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam.
Tel. +31-20-525 6598; fax: +31-842239111

 <mailto:loet at leydesdorff.net> loet at leydesdorff.net ;
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/> http://www.leydesdorff.net/ 
Visiting Professor 2007-2010,  <http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.html>
ISTIC, Beijing; Honorary Fellow 2007-2010,  <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/>
SPRU, University of Sussex 



 

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