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

科学技术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，智力指标的制定和计量是一个极其复杂的问题。也就是说，在制定一般和稳健的指标方面存在许多困难，这些指标可以适用于(i)不同的标准和技术领域，（ii）不同的聚集水平（从研究小组到整个国家），以及（iii）同样适用于投入和产出措施。具体来说，那些进展较慢或涉及的资源不是很大的领域比生命科学更容易量化和管理，例如，目前联邦投资非常大，变化速度快得惊人的生命科学。这个跨学科提案的目标是通过使用统计物理学的最新概念，即缩放和普适性，来解决这个具有挑战性的研究问题。这项研究已在其他领域得到应用，例如根据各国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&amp；T系统中的初步工作表明，S&amp；T系统表现出共同的普遍物理特征。该项目将在不同的汇总水平上使用各种投入和产出措施，试图确定标准和技术系统发展的稳健、普遍的特征。例如，该项目将调查国家研究系统是否根据其研究和发展支出水平显示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院系的出版产出。

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.