Exploring the knowledge base of the knowledge economy (completed)

The purpose is to examine the development of new scientific fields related to the production and use of knowledge, such as STS, innovation studies and entrepreneurship, and discuss the implications of this for social science more generally.

About the project

Since the 1960s several new scientific fields related to the production and use of knowledge have emerged. Chief among them are science (or research) policy studies, innovation studies and entrepreneurship research. As in other emerging scientific fields much of this is published in the form of books, not in journals. More recently, however, several specialized journals devoted to one or more of these fields have emerged, signaling – possibly – that these fields are now more mature.

The development of such new strands of knowledge is arguably an important phenomenon worthy of study. Little is known on how different the knowledge bases of these strands are. Or perhaps the knowledge bases are not that different but the organizational structures and social networks are? One way to study such phenomena is through its written output, i.e.,publication record. The scholarly practice of providing reference lists (citations) in each publication is particularly helpful in this regard, because these references point to relationships between individual the pieces of knowledge that together represent the development of the field. By analyzing these citations one may be able to sketch the main lines of thought that emerged in the intellectual history of a field.

Objectives

An important goal of the present project is the construction and the analysis of a database that is more suited to the analysis of the emerging strands under particular scrutiny here. Based on this database we will analyse in more detail the relationship between science (or research) policy studies, innovation studies and entrepreneurship research as well as the links between these areas and social science more generally.

Outcomes

Three research reports (papers) analysing the knowledge base of the three different fields considered in the project, one report (paper) analysing how these fields interact, research reports (papers) using formal network analyses & a workshop/conference with external participation.

Financing and Cooperation

DIME

 

Published Sep. 28, 2010 1:45 PM - Last modified Oct. 6, 2016 3:05 PM

Participants

Detailed list of participants