Network dynamics among co-active researchers

Research Area: Network Analysis Year: 2011
Type of Publication: In Proceedings
Authors:
  • Antoine Schoen
  • Jean-Philippe Cointet
  • Lionel Villard
  • Peter van den Besselaar
Book title: European Network of Indicator Designers
Series: STI Conference Pages: 3
Address: Rome, Italy
Organization: PRIME-ENID Month: September
Abstract:
Studying simultaneously scientific publications and patents provides a powerful entry point for understanding the linkages between science and technology. It can inform various debates on the social utility of knowledge production, in particular in its industrial and economic dimension. Co-activity, defined as a researcher joint production of scientific articles and patents of invention, is an interesting focus for studying how scientific ant technological research networks connect. Co-activity is therefore a good locus for studying the ways scientific and technological knowledge production are being articulated with these academic inventors acting as brokers. Building on Breschi and Catalini’s approach (2010), this study analyses the research networks linking academic scientists working in an open science environment and involved in the private technology domain. As the study afore mentioned, our study combines data on scientific co-authorship with data on patent co-invention, at the level of individual researchers in a science-intensive technology area: heterogeneous catalysis. In this study, we test, in the first place, various hypotheses on co-active researchers, using a finely disambiguated hybrid (i.e. publications and patents) data set: are inventors top publishers in their field? from a dynamical perspective, do patents application compete with articles publication? Then, we introduce the collaboration network to understand if scientists are more likely to become inventors when exposed to co-activity in their immediate social neighbourhood.