Huang, C; Notten, A; Rasters, N. 2011. Nanoscience and technology publications and patents: a review of social science studies and search strategies. JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER 36 (2): 145-172

[Eugene Garfield]

Huang, C; Notten, A; Rasters, N. 2011. Nanoscience and technology 
publications and patents: a review of social science studies and search 
strategies. JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER 36 (2): 145-172.

Author Full Name(s): Huang, Can; Notten, Ad; Rasters, Nico
Language: English
Document Type: Article

Author Keywords: Nanotechnology; Research and development; Productivity; 
Publications; Patents; Bibliometric analysis; Data mining; Search strategy
KeyWords Plus: NON-INVENTING PEERS; S-AND-T; NANOTECHNOLOGY 
RESEARCH; NANO-SCIENCE; SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS; CITATION ANALYSIS; 
MAPPING EXERCISE; UNITED-STATES; FIELD; INNOVATION

Abstract: We undertake a comprehensive review of more than 120 social 
science studies on nanotechnology, 90% of which are based on the analyses of 
the nanotechnology publications and patents. We discussed four intellectual 
debates formed by these studies, namely whether nanotechnology is an 
interdisciplinary field, whether nanoscience and nanotechnology are closely 
interlinked, whether nanotechnology development is path dependent and who is 
winning the global nanorace. We also conduct a comparative analysis of 
bibliometric search strategies used in the literature to harvest the publications 
and patents, including lexical queries, evolutionary lexical queries, citation 
analysis, and the use of core journal sets to identify nanotechnology articles. 
Because most of the compared strategies, except the one using 10 core 
journals in the field, share a core set of keywords and thus harvest a common 
batch of publications, they produce very similar ranking tables of the top 
subject areas and journals and the most prolific countries and institutions. 
Moreover, the core journal strategy does not provide a robust delineation of an 
emerging field such as nanotechnology due to the fact that nanotechnology 
related articles are published in a wide range of journals. Also, the different 
criteria for selecting the core journals will affect the analytical results 
dramatically.

Addresses: [Huang, Can; Notten, Ad] UNU MERIT, NL-6211 TC Maastricht, 
Netherlands; [Huang, Can; Rasters, Nico] Maastricht Univ, NL-6200 MD 
Maastricht, Netherlands
Reprint Address: Notten, A, UNU MERIT, Keizer Karelpl 19, NL-6211 TC 
Maastricht, Netherlands.

E-mail Address: can.huang at maastrichtuniversity.nl; notten at merit.unu.edu; 
nico.rasters at maastrichtuniversity.nl
ISSN: 0892-9912
DOI: 10.1007/s10961-009-9149-8
open access: http://www.springerlink.com/content/p8t0386158203874/