SGER: NanoMap: Mapping Nanotechnology Development

University Of Arizona, Tucson AZ

Investigators

Abstract

This Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) project looks to link federally funded work being pursued within the Nanotech community to the issuance of patents. Because of government interest, funding levels, and industry investment, there is a need to monitor the global development of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (NSE), to understand the impact of the funding in the field, and to examine the R&D status in industry and academic institutions. The following research directions will be pursued for this study: (1) the patent analysis framework for worldwide NSE development status will be extended; (2) in-depth grant- patent association analysis to assess the impact of NSF funding and NSF-funded researchers in NSE will be performed; (3) current research will be expanded to include scientific literature for a technology impact study; (4) network topological analysis techniques will be developed specifically for patent-literature citation networks to identify key innovations; and (5) this knowledge mapping analysis framework will be automated, and an integrated NanoMap system for NSE patent and literature retrieval, analysis, and visualization will be developed. The intellectual merit of this work lies in the expectation that the NanoMap system will streamline and automate future NSE knowledge retrieval, analysis, and mapping activities, thus saving the time of scientists, policy makers, and others in NSE. Previous research in this area has demonstrated the impact of NSF funding on NSE development: that NSF PI/inventors had a significantly higher impact (based on patent citations) on NSE research than other comparison groups. The broader impact of this research is that, in extending the methodology, in-depth analysis of temporal grant-patent associations will be supported, e.g., it will be clearer which grants contributed to the development of which patents. By incorporating an academic publication impact factor (i.e., Science Citation Index, SCI) into the future NSE grant impact study, new knowledge about the relationships between funding, grants, and ensuing patents will be created. This new knowledge will be particularly important given how rapid developments in nanotechnology are fundamentally impacting many areas of the US economy, and even impacting the development of new industries.