What do we know about innovation in nanotechnology? Some propositions about an emerging field between hype and path-dependency

This contribution formulates a number of propositions about the emergence of novel nanoscience and nanotechnology (N&N). Seeking to complement recent work that aims to define a research agenda and draws on general insights from the innovation literature, this paper aims to synthesize knowledge from innovation-related studies of the N&N field. More specifically, it is suggested that N&N is often misconstrued as either a field of technology or an area of (broadly) converging technologies while evidence to date suggests rather that N&N be considered a set of inter-related and overlapping about not necessarily merging technologies. The role of instrumentation in connecting the various N&N fields is underlined. Finally, the question is raised whether change in N&N tends to be incremental rather than discontinuous, being the result of technological path-dependencies and lock-ins in industry-typical search regimes that are only slowly giving way to more boundary-crossing activities.     

A bibliometric study of China’s semiconductor literature compared with other major asian countries

In this paper we compare the scientific research in the semiconductor-related field in China with some other major nations in Asia. It is based on the bibliometric information from SCI-Expanded database during the time period of 1995–2004. We show that China has been developing fast in semiconductor research, and become the second productive country in Asia as reflected by the publication profile. The evidences indicate a significant increasing trend in the research efforts and readership among Asian countries. Similar to the scientists in Japan and South Korea, Chinese scientists were more inclined to work in larger groups, typically 4 or more authors. The assessment of research quality is further conducted based on citation-based measures. As benchmarks, two western countries, namely USA and Germany, have been compared in the citation analysis. It is revealed that the impacts of research outputs in the Asian countries, except for Japan, have been badly incommensurate with their devoted research efforts compared with USA and Germany. Like most of other Asian countries the research results of Chinese scientists in semiconductor have a low international visibility despite their strong research efforts and increasingly large domestic readership. The application of Leimkuhler curve illustrates vividly the inequality of citation times among the compared countries. Furthermore, the Gini Indices of each country and each pair of countries are calculated which illustrates again the inequality of informetric productivities.     

The reporting of the risks from genetically modified organisms in the mass media, 2002–2004

This paper describes an analysis of coverage of the risks from agricultural and food genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) from April 2002 to April 2004 in 14 news media from six countries (Canada, France, Germany, Spain, the UK and the USA) which was conducted as part of a review for the European Commission of the management of risk communication. A total of 597 relevant news articles were found and coded for their presentational tone, the types of risk (environmental, financial, health and political, in that order), the organisms described (mainly maize, rape and beet crops), and the documents, people and organisations cited. UK news media tended to be the most “scary” and Spanish ones the most “robust”. Articles quoting public perceptions, non-governmental environmental organisations and politicians tended to emphasize the risks of GMOs; those quoting scientists tended to downplay the risks and describe their potential benefits. Some suggestions for possible action by the European Commission are put forward, such as the facilitation of contact between journalists and scientists, but it is recognized that for some newspapers, their editorial wish to campaign will inevitably over-ride their reporters’ wish to present the truth.     

Scientific and technological performance evaluation of the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) in the field of Biotechnology

An evaluation of the Spanish CSIC performance in Biotechnology, as compared with those of the French CNRS and the Italian CNR, has been carried out to determine the balance between the generation of scientific knowledge and the transfer of technology. This study shows a high scientific productivity mostly in journals with moderate impact factor, a low generation of patents and an insufficient transfer of knowledge to the Spanish companies. Other indicators confirm the existence of competitive human resources in biotechnological research producing scientific knowledge of interest for the development of patents and that cooperates successfully at European level.     

Why are Websites co-linked? The case of Canadian universities

This study examined why Websites were co-linked using Canadian university Websites as the test set. Pages that co-linked to these university Websites were located using Yahool. A random sample of 859 co-linking pages (the page that initiated the co-link) was retrieved and the contents of the page, as well as the context of the link, were manually examined to record the following variables: language, country, type of Website, and the reasons for co-linking. The study found that in over 94% of cases, the two co-linked universities were related academically; many of these cases (38%) showed a relationship specifically in teaching or research. This confirms results, from previous quantitative studies, that Web co-links can be a measure of the similarity or relatedness of sites being co-linked and that Web co-link analysis can thus be used to study relationships among linked Websites.     

An educational resource for information literacy in higher education: Functional and users analyses of the e-COMS academic portal

As in today’s knowledge society the Internet is playing an important role in the information literacy of university students the goal of this paper is to analyse, after its first year on the Web, the informational impact of an e-learning resource developed by Granada’s University lecturers (the e-COMS educational portal), a pioneer in Spain for training in information literacy. From the objective and subjective data provided by the own portal and by it users, two different and complementary kinds of analysis (functional and users’) are performed. Assessment of various capabilities, among which visibility and usability stand out, is provided. The highly positive but improvable results offer a detailed analysis of the functional aspects of the portal itself and of the users’ relations with this information resource. From these analyses strengths and weaknesses are extracted and some proposals for improvement are derived.     

Generalized Hirsch h-index for disclosing latent facts in citation networks

What is the value of a scientist and its impact upon the scientific thinking? How can we measure the prestige of a journal or a conference? The evaluation of the scientific work of a scientist and the estimation of the quality of a journal or conference has long attracted significant interest, due to the benefits by obtaining an unbiased and fair criterion. Although it appears to be simple, defining a quality metric is not an easy task. To overcome the disadvantages of the present metrics used for ranking scientists and journals, J. E. Hirsch proposed a pioneering metric, the now famous h-index. In this article we demonstrate several inefficiencies of this index and develop a pair of generalizations and effective variants of it to deal with scientist ranking and publication forum ranking. The new citation indices are able to disclose trendsetters in scientific research, as well as researchers that constantly shape their field with their influential work, no matter how old they are. We exhibit the effectiveness and the benefits of the new indices to unfold the full potential of the h-index, with extensive experimental results obtained from the DBLP, a widely known on-line digital library.     

Factors to evaluate a patent in addition to citations

The emergence of patent citations as a tool for patent estimation has been subjected to equally vocal champions and critics. In additional to patent citation, this article aims to contribute other factors, including court decisions, claim language, extension cases, patent family and portfolio, which should be deliberated during patent evaluation. It introduces the subject-matter by discussing the specialties and peculiarities of these proposed factors. Furthermore, comparisons between the patent citations and these factors are presented by illustrating several well-known patents. The results of the comparisons reveal that an adverse conclusion might be drawn if a patent is estimated only based on citations. The conclusion supports Meyer’s study that “the general nature of a common framework for both scientific and patent citations would severely limit its usefulness.” Therefore, those factors discussed in the article would be a great asset in patent evaluation. However, it only illustrates their impact on patent estimation using a couple well-known patents. Future research would be needed to investigate these factors in a more detailed manner.     

Metric analysis of the information visibility and diffusion about the European Higher Education Area on Spanish University websites

The purpose of the study proposed in this paper is to evaluate the Spanish public university websites dedicated to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). To do so, the quality of these resources has been analysed in the light of data provided by a series of indicators grouped in seven criteria, most of which were used to determine what information is made available and in what way. The criteria used in our analysis are: visibility, authority, updatedness, accesibility, correctness and completeness, quality assessment and navigability. All in all, the results allow us to carry out an overall diagnosis of the situation and also provide us with information about the situation at each university, thus revealing their main strengths, namely authority and navegability, and also their chief shortcomings: updatedness, accessibility and quality assessment. In this way it is possible to detect the best practices in each of the aspects evaluated so that they can serve as an example and guide for universities with greater deficiencies and thus help them to improve their EHEA websites.     

Do individual factors matter? A survey of scientists’ patenting in Portuguese public research organisations

This paper addresses scientists’ behaviour regarding the patenting of knowledge produced in universities and other public sector research organisations (PSROs). Recent years have witnessed a rapid growth in patenting and licensing activities by PSROs. We argue that the whole process depends to a certain extent on scientists’ willingness to disclose their inventions. Given this assumption, we conduct research into individual behaviour in order to understand scientists’ views concerning the patenting of their research results. Data from a questionnaire survey of Portuguese researchers from nine PSROs in life sciences and biotechnology is presented and analysed and complemented with in-depth interviews. The results reveal that overall the scientists surveyed show a low propensity to become involved in patenting and licensing activities, despite the fact that the majority had no “ethical” objections to the disclosure of their inventions and the commercial exploitation of these. Perceptions about the impacts of these activities on certain fundamental aspects of knowledge production and dissemination are however divergent. This may account for the low participation levels. Furthermore, most scientists perceived the personal benefits deriving from this type of activity to be low. Similarly, the majority also believed that there are many difficulties associated with the patenting process and that they receive limited support from their organisations, which lack the proper competences and structures to assist with patenting and licensing.