The structure and infrastructure of the global nanotechnology literature

Abstract

Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Records from the Science Citation Index/ Social Science Citation Index (SCI) were analyzed to provide the infrastructure of the global nanotechnology literature (prolific authors/ journals/ institutions/ countries, most cited authors/ papers/ journals) and the thematic structure (taxonomy) of the global nanotechnology literature, from a science perspective. Records from the Engineering Compendex (EC) were analyzed to provide a taxonomy from a technology perspective.• The Far Eastern countries have expanded nanotechnology publication output dramatically in the past decade.• The Peoples Republic of China ranks second to the USA (2004 results) in nanotechnology papers published in the Science Citation Index, and has increased its nanotechnology publication output by a factor of 21 in a decade.• Of the six most prolific (publications) countries in nanotechnology, the three from the Western group (USA, Germany, France) have about eight percent more publications (for 2004) than the three from the Far Eastern group (China, Japan, South Korea).• While most of the high nanotechnology publication-producing countries are also high nanotechnology patent producers in the US Patent Office (as of 2003), China is a major exception. China ranks 20th as a nanotechnology patent-producing country in the US Patent Office.

Nanotechnology Development in Japan Based on Patent Analysis

“…The data contained all the application patents related to nanotechnology in the world from 1991 to 2010. Many attempts have been made to design the best search strategy for the identification of nanotechnology patents [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. After reviewing a variety of such efforts, Wong et al refined the keyword-search strategy of previous researchers together with the inclusion of an up-to-date set of Class 977 patents that have been reclassified by USPTO as nanotechnology [14].…”

Diffusion of nanotechnology knowledge in Turkey and its network structure

“…LSA has been integrated into several software packages including CiteSpace developed by Chen (2006). Bibliometric and scientometric studies have been carried out to review the development and growth of nanoscience and nanotechnology on a global scale with a view to find out the most prolific authors, journals, institutions, countries and the most cited authors/papers/journals (Kostoff, Koytcheff & Lau, 2007;Kostoff et al, 2006). China, Far Eastern countries and USA, Germany, and France were the most productive countries in terms of number of publications.…”

“…The growth rate has not slowed down and nanoscience and nanotechnology has even become a more inter-and multidisciplinary field of research since then. Information scientists studied the nanotechnology research literature and its structure (Kostoff et al, 2006;Kostoff, Koytcheff & Lau, 2007); the evolution, cognitive content and socio-cognitive structure of the field (Milojević, 2009(Milojević, , 2012; and the scientific collaboration patterns of nanoscience and nanotechnology researchers (Schummer, 2004;Ovalle-Perandones et al, 2013). Turkey identified nanotechnology early on (2003) as one of the eight strategic fields to support (Ulusal, 2004).…”

Transnational Regulation of Nanotechnology: Reality or Romanticism?

“…Indeed, discussions of appropriate forms of regulatory oversight for nanotechnology have shadowed the exponential growth of the technology itself, with a rapid proliferation in calls and proposals for regulation. The actual adoption of nanotechnology-specific regulations, however, has increasingly lagged both the technology and the academic and policy debate:'while governments have invested heavily in R&D programs they have been noticeably unenthusiastic about implementing new regulatory frameworks ' (Bowman and Hodge, 2006: 1065; see also Renn and Roco, 2006).Of the many impediments to the enactment of regulations, one that is of particular interest is the international scope of nanotechnology development (Roco, 2006;Kostoff et al, 2006). Every major industrial country is actively pursuing nanotechnology (Roco, 2006), and none wishes to put its scientists and companies at a competitive disadvantage by unilaterally imposing restrictive regulations.…”

“…Of the many impediments to the enactment of regulations, one that is of particular interest is the international scope of nanotechnology development (Roco, 2006;Kostoff et al, 2006). Every major industrial country is actively pursuing nanotechnology (Roco, 2006), and none wishes to put its scientists and companies at a competitive disadvantage by unilaterally imposing restrictive regulations.…”