TY - JOUR
T1 - Longitudinal nanotechnology development (1991 - 2002)
T2 - National science foundation funding and its impact on patents
AU - Huang, Zan
AU - Chen, Hsinchun
AU - Yan, Lijun
AU - Roco, Mihail C.
N1 - Funding Information:
The NSF funds research and education in science and engineering through awards (grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements). The foundation accounts for about 20 percent of federal support to academic institutions for basic research (http://www.nsf.gov/home/grants.htm). About 6% of NSF budget in its 2005 budget is dedicated to NSE. The dataset for all science and engineering fields includes 122,778 awards in the interval 1991– 2002 under 65 NSF Divisions and 638 Programs involving 81,040 investigators. The awards can be accessed at http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/index.jsp. A complete list of NSF Divisions, Directorates, and Programs is available at http://www.nsf.gov/ home/nsforg/orglist.htm. The keyword search was performed for the title and summary of each award that are available on the public website. The detailed list of keywords can be found in our previous publications (Huang et al., 2003, 2004).
Funding Information:
We have identified 5,263 NSE-related NSF awards involving 38 Divisions and 245 Programs between 1991 and 2002. Tables 1 and 2 present the top NSF Divisions and Programs with the largest numbers of NSE-related awards during 1991–2002 and during the three time intervals. The Division of Materials Research (DMR) was the dominant Division with more than a quarter of the total number of NSE-related awards, followed by the Division of Chemistry (CHE), Division of Chemical and Transportation Systems (CTS), Division of Design, Manufacture and Industrial Innovation (DMI), and Division of Electrical and Communication Systems (ECS). The top 5 NSF Programs funding the NSE research during 1991–2002 are: Electronics, Photonics, and Device Technologies (Program # 1517), Condensed Matter Physics (# 1710), Small Business Phase I (# 5371), Polymers (# 1773), and Major Research Instrumentation (# 1189).
Funding Information:
that a new research funded by the NSF even-tually invoked substantial industry efforts. Such award topics include ‘‘molecular electronic devices,’’ ‘‘Transmission Electron Microscopy,’’ ‘‘inorganic materials,’’ ‘‘molecular beam epitaxy,’’ and ‘‘spectroscopic techniques.’’
Funding Information:
This research is supported by the following awards: NSF, ‘‘SGER: Intelligent Patent Analysis for Nanoscale Science and Engineering,’’ IIS-0311652, April 2003–August 2004, and ‘‘SGER: Intelligent Patent Analysis and Visualization,’’ IIS-0311628, May 2003–April 2004. The NSF Directorate for Engineering supported the last co-author. We would also like to thank Dr. Maria Zemankova of the National Science Foundation for providing with us the NSF award source data and the valuable comments and suggestions on our study.
PY - 2005/10
Y1 - 2005/10
N2 - Nanotechnology holds the promise to revolutionize a wide range of products, processes and applications. It is recognized by over sixty countries as critical for their development at the beginning of the 21st century. A significant public investment of over $1 billion annually is devoted to nanotechnology research in the United States. This paper provides an analysis of the National Science Foundation (NSF) funding of nanoscale science and engineering (NSE) and its relationship to the innovation as reflected in the United States Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) patent data. Using a combination of bibliometric analysis and visualization tools, we have identified several general trends, the key players, and the evolution of technology topics in the NSF funding and commercial patenting activities. This study documents the rapid growth of innovation in the field of nanotechnology and its correlation to funding. Statistical analysis shows that the NSF-funded researchers and their patents have higher impact factors than other private and publicly funded reference groups. This suggests the importance of fundamental research on nanotechnology development. The number of cites per NSF-funded inventor is about 10 as compared to 2 for all inventors of NSE-related patents recorded at USPTO, and the corresponding Authority Score is 20 as compared to 1.8.
AB - Nanotechnology holds the promise to revolutionize a wide range of products, processes and applications. It is recognized by over sixty countries as critical for their development at the beginning of the 21st century. A significant public investment of over $1 billion annually is devoted to nanotechnology research in the United States. This paper provides an analysis of the National Science Foundation (NSF) funding of nanoscale science and engineering (NSE) and its relationship to the innovation as reflected in the United States Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) patent data. Using a combination of bibliometric analysis and visualization tools, we have identified several general trends, the key players, and the evolution of technology topics in the NSF funding and commercial patenting activities. This study documents the rapid growth of innovation in the field of nanotechnology and its correlation to funding. Statistical analysis shows that the NSF-funded researchers and their patents have higher impact factors than other private and publicly funded reference groups. This suggests the importance of fundamental research on nanotechnology development. The number of cites per NSF-funded inventor is about 10 as compared to 2 for all inventors of NSE-related patents recorded at USPTO, and the corresponding Authority Score is 20 as compared to 1.8.
KW - Information visualization
KW - Nanoscale science and engineering (NSE)
KW - Nanotechnology
KW - Paper citations
KW - Patent analysis
KW - Public funding of research
KW - Research and development (R&D)
KW - Self-organizing maps
KW - Technological innovation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=24144502356&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=24144502356&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s11051-005-5468-3
DO - 10.1007/s11051-005-5468-3
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:24144502356
SN - 1388-0764
VL - 7
SP - 343
EP - 376
JO - Journal of Nanoparticle Research
JF - Journal of Nanoparticle Research
IS - 4-5
ER -