Jean Pierre Courtial

Co-word analysis as a tool for describing the network of interactions between basic and technological research: The case of polymer chemsitry

The goal of this paper is to show how co-word analysis techniques can be used to study interactions between academic and technological research. It is based upon a systematic content analysis of publications in the polymer science field over a period of 15 years. The results concern a.) the evolution of research in different subject areas and the patterns of their interaction; b.) a description of subject area “life cycles”; c.) an analysis of ”research trajectories” given factors of stability and change in a research network; d.) the need to use both science push and technology pull theories to explain the interaction dynamics of a research field. The co-word techniques developed in this paper should help to build a bridge between research in scientometrics and work underway to better understand the economics of innovation.

Co-word maps of biotechnology: an example of cognitive scientometrics

To analyse developments of scientific fields, scientometrics provides useful tools, provided one is prepared to take the content of scientific articles into account. Such cognitive scientometrics is illustrated by using as data a ten-year period of articles from a biotechnology core journal. After coding with key-words, the relations between articles are brought out by co-word analysis. Maps of the field are given, showing connections between areas and their change over time, and with respect to the institutions in which research is performed. In addition, other approaches are explored, including an indicator of ‘theoretical level’ of bodies of articles.

Qualitative models, quantitative tools and network analysis

One model for knowledge development is the network interaction model. Insofar as socio-technical networks may have some structural properties, does knowledge development reflect this? The hypothesis that it does may enable us to make some forecasts of science development from a description of the state of a field. One condition necessary for testing this hypothesis is that of adopting a model for these networks. Co-word analysis is such a tool. It gives us key-words networks derived from scientific and technical texts. The author checks for network properties in the area of knowledge development through a case study of Polymer Science and Technology from 1973 to 1978.

The use of patent titles for identifying the topics of invention and forecasting trends

Co-word analysis applied to patents through WPIL normalized title words appears to give a useful picture of a given field: we obtain both qualitative (themes) and quantitative information (weight of themes). It also gives information about the strategic aspects of the themes. Furthermore, in some cases, it is an indication of the future of certain themes that may help forecasting and management studies. Finally, it provides information about what could be a real technology growth process, in relation to the so-called translation model used in co-word analysis.

How to measure the degree of independence of a research system

The French bibliographic data-base PASCAL is used to study relations between Research Systems in terms of dependance of a periphery upon a Center.The deployment of disciplines, the productivity and the use of mother tongue of 9 developped countries are quantified (on the Life Science file only).This dependance is also quantified by reference to who studies whom, and in which language the results are available. A search in Life Science and Earth Science files by means of subject terms added by PASCAL indexers at input to papers published by 5 developped countries working on fourteen Latino-american and African countries.

A model for social interaction between cognition and action through a key-word simulation of knowledge growth

The question of knowledge construction can be regarded as a question of cognition in relation to action.Callon and al. have suggested interactive processes mixing both cognitive and social aspects of knowledge or technology. Both actors and interactions can usually be described by texts, and namely, by words. Thus knowledge development can be described through key-words network development. The authors have made simulations for knowledge development according to a local positive feed-back rule within small sets of word associations. In comparison with real data, the simulation results are fairly good. This approach leads to a general and very simple interaction model describing knowledge development. In this model, as opposed to usual cybernetics, actors constantly change, building a common scenario in relation to a mutual definition rule.

A mathematical model of development in a research field

We use co-word analysis in a retrospective study of the transformation of the knowledge network in the field of polymer science from 1973 to 1976. The results of this study lead us to propose a model of change in the field. This model is based on the observation that the interaction of several networks gives rise to a sub-network that is at first central and then - and this is what the model allows us to predict — central and developed (without its precise content being predictable). Such sub-networks begin in regions of the network of central associated words where there are numerous holes or incomplete links. The model appears to be sufficiently robust statistically that it does not miss significant transformations and it suggests a way of predicting knowledge development. A comparison is made with other models of network transformation, such as the contagion model and the model of local structural equivalence.

The use of review articles in the analysis of a research area

Review articles in the field of polymer science in the seventies are analyzed in order to check their usefulness in describing at a very low cost the development or the state of the art of a field. Results are compared with those obtained through a quantitative study of scientific articles published at the same time in the field. Review articles can be regarded as defining a research programme attempting to link together two networks: polymer properties—as being desirable from market considerations—and polymer structure—as being analyzable by means of academic science, through three kinds of “translation” strategies. If we thus define a research programme in terms of the mobilization of networks, it is possible to say of review articles that they provide a good representation of the development of networks of problems whose evolution they sketch.

Scientific innovation in bibliographical databases: A comparative study of the science citation index and the pascal database

This study compares information obtained from the INIST/CNRS bibliographical database PASCAL with that found in theAtlas of Science published by ISI. The goal of the comparison was to contribute, to a better understanding of how databases can be used to carry out fine-grained studies of social and cognitive factors which affect the definition of a scientific research program. The program studied concern the development of research on “brushborder” cell membranes.