Application of Statistical Physics Concepts and Methods to the Study of Science & Technology Systems

科学与技术(S&T)政策的定义和实施需要及时、可靠和清晰的信息。由于智力知识生产的特点，S指标的编制和测量是一个极其复杂的问题。也就是说，要制定通用而稳健的指标，并将其应用于(I)不同的S和技术领域，(Ii)适用于不同的总体水平(从研究小组到整个国家)，以及(Iii)同样适用于投入和产出衡量标准，存在许多困难。具体地说，与生命科学相比，进展较慢或涉及的资源不太大的领域更容易量化和管理，例如，在生命科学领域，联邦政府的投资现在非常大，而且变化的速度快得惊人。这项跨学科建议的目标是利用统计物理学的最新概念，即标度和普适性，解决这一具有挑战性的研究问题。这项研究已经应用于其他领域，例如根据各国的经济规模确定各国的共同增长特征。此外，这些研究人员在S&T系统中的初步工作表明，S&T系统具有共同的普适物理特征。该项目将尝试在不同的聚合水平上使用各种投入和产出衡量标准来确定S&T系统演变的健壮、普遍、特征。例如，该项目将根据各国研究和开发支出的水平，调查各国研究系统是否表现出类似的统计物理特征，并将使用文献计量学数据比较欧洲和美国大学系的出版产出。

The definition and implementation of Science & Technology (S &T) policies requires information that is timely, reliable, and clear. Because of the character of the production of intellectual knowledge, the development and measurement of S&T indicators is an extremely complex problem. Namely, there are many difficulties in developing indicators that are general and robust and can be applied across (i) the different S&T fields, (ii) for different aggregations levels (from research groups to entire countries), and (iii) equally well for input and output measures. Specifically, fields where advances are slower or where the resources involved are not too large are much easier to quantify and manage than, for example, the life sciences where Federal investment is nowadays very large and for which the pace of change is staggeringly fast. The goal of this interdisciplinary proposal is to address this challenging research problem by using recent concepts of statistical physics, namely, scaling and universality. This research has already been applied in other areas, such as identifying common growth characteristics of countries on the basis of the size of their economies. In addition, preliminary work by these researchers in S&T systems suggests that S&T systems exhibit common universal physics characteristics. The project will try to identify robust, universal, characteristics of the evolution of S&T systems using a variety of input and output measures at varying levels of aggregation. For example, the project will investigate whether national research systems exhibits similar statistical physics characteristics, based on their level of research and development expenditures, and will compare publishing output of European and U.S. university departments using bibliometric data.