Sciences, technologies and visualizations

This research presents first a document level global map of technology that characterises the proximity and dependency of technological areas. In a second place, the technological portfolios of two large industrial corporations (IBM and BASF) are projected on this global map of technology, allowing comparisons that are visually attractive, very readable, and potentially useful for research, development and innovation policy makers as for research managers within corporations.

The same tool can be used for mapping any actor’s technological profile, be it universities, public research organisations, regions, countries... An original classification identifying 389 technological subfields provides a finely grained visualisation.

The global map of technology uses an original classification of technology that distributes all inventions in 389 non-overlapping classes.
This IFRIS classification is based on the well-established WIPO hierarchical classification that distinguishes, at its finest aggregation level, 35 technological fields, these 35 fields, being grouped in 5 technological domains.
The IFRIS classification adds a finer grained level of disaggregation - i.e. below the level of technological field - of 389 technological subfields.