Mapping the International Evolution of Collaboration Networks on Patents Granted to Universities around the World

该项目由美国国家科学基金会（NSF）的科学技术与学会（STS）和科学与创新政策科学（SciSIP）项目共同资助，研究世界各地学术科学发明家之间的知识流动。大学专利是本研究的分析对象，因为专利既反映了知识的生产，也反映了知识的扩散。通过分析世界各地的发明人与机构在授予大学专利方面的合作，解决了以下问题：学术发明人之间的知识如何流动？国家特征、国家政策和制度实践如何影响知识扩散？个人学术发明者在多大程度上引导了知识的流动？从政策的角度来看，《拜杜法案》（Bayh-Dole Act）——一项旨在促进工业、学院和联邦实验室之间技术开发和转移的两党立法努力——的国际影响得到了检验。本研究结合网络分析、网络可视化、专利引用分析、时间分析和专题分析等方法，将知识扩散作为一个复杂的系统进行追踪。该项目：展示了世界各地学术发明家与组织间网络之间的重要关系；将专利作为知识扩散的重要过程的产物进行分析；并描述了全球大学专利科学合作的形式、结构和演变。这项研究的结果将提供实质性的信息，在设计和执行知识传播和创新政策时，可能对各组织和科技决策者有用。本研究旨在对知识扩散的复杂系统和过程的理论知识做出基础性的贡献。

This project, which is co-funded by the Science, Technology & Society (STS) and Science of Science and Innovation Policy (SciSIP) Programs at NSF, studies how knowledge flows between and among academic scientific inventors around the world. University patents are the object of analysis for this study because patents reflect both knowledge production and diffusion. By analyzing collaborations between inventors and institutions on patents granted to universities around the world, the following questions are addressed: How does knowledge flow between academic inventors? How do country characteristics, national policies, and institutional practices shape knowledge diffusion? To what extent do individual academic inventors direct the flow of knowledge? From a policy perspective, the international impact of the Bayh-Dole Act--a bipartisan legislative effort to facilitate technology development and transfers between industry, the academy and federal laboratories--is examined. This study traces knowledge diffusion as a complex system by combining methodological approaches that include network analysis, network visualization, patent citation analysis, temporal analysis, and topical analysis. This project: demonstrates important relationships between academic inventors and inter-organizational networks around the world; analyzes patents as an artifact of important processes of knowledge diffusion; and describes the shape, structure and evolution of scientific collaborations on university patents around the globe.The findings of this study will provide substantive information that may be of use to organizations and science and technology policymakers in designing and implementing policies for knowledge diffusion and innovation. This study intends to make fundamental contributions to theoretical knowledge about complex systems and processes of knowledge diffusion.