IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jas/jasssj/2017-14-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Utility, Impact, Fashion and Lobbying: An Agent-Based Model of the Funding and Epistemic Landscape of Research

Author

Listed:
  • Pawel Sobkowicz

Abstract

The paper presents an agent-based model of an evolution of research interests in a scientific community. The research epistemic/funding landscape is divided into separate domains, which differ in impact on society and the perceived utility, which may determine the public willingness to fund. Scientific domains also differ in their potential for attention grabbing, crucial discoveries, which make them fashionable and also attract funding. The scientists may `follow' the availability of funds via a stylized grant based scheme. The model includes possible effects of the additional public relation and lobbying efforts, promoting certain disciplines at the cost of others. Results are based on two multi-parameter NetLogo models. The first uses an abstract, square lattice topology, and serves as a tool to understand the effects of the parameters describing the individual preferences. The second model, sharing the internal dynamics with the first one, is based on an actual research topics map and projects statistics, derived from the UK Research Council data for 2007--2016. Despite simplifications, results reproduce characteristics of the British research community surprisingly well.

Suggested Citation

  • Pawel Sobkowicz, 2017. "Utility, Impact, Fashion and Lobbying: An Agent-Based Model of the Funding and Epistemic Landscape of Research," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 20(2), pages 1-5.
    • Handle: RePEc:jas:jasssj:2017-14-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.jasss.org/20/2/5/5.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bruce Edmonds & Nigel Gilbert & Petra Ahrweiler & Andrea Scharnhorst, 2011. "Simulating the Social Processes of Science," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 14(4), pages 1-14.
    2. Small, Henry & Boyack, Kevin W. & Klavans, Richard, 2014. "Identifying emerging topics in science and technology," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(8), pages 1450-1467.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Thomas Feliciani & Junwen Luo & Lai Ma & Pablo Lucas & Flaminio Squazzoni & Ana Marušić & Kalpana Shankar, 2019. "A scoping review of simulation models of peer review," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(1), pages 555-594, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tingcan Ma & Ruinan Li & Guiyan Ou & Mingliang Yue, 2018. "Topic based research competitiveness evaluation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(2), pages 789-803, November.
    2. Natalya Ivanova & Ekaterina Zolotova, 2023. "Landolt Indicator Values in Modern Research: A Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-22, June.
    3. Zhang, Yi & Huang, Ying & Porter, Alan L. & Zhang, Guangquan & Lu, Jie, 2019. "Discovering and forecasting interactions in big data research: A learning-enhanced bibliometric study," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 795-807.
    4. Gao, Qiang & Liang, Zhentao & Wang, Ping & Hou, Jingrui & Chen, Xiuxiu & Liu, Manman, 2021. "Potential index: Revealing the future impact of research topics based on current knowledge networks," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3).
    5. Hötte, Kerstin & Pichler, Anton & Lafond, François, 2021. "The rise of science in low-carbon energy technologies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    6. Peter Sjögårde & Fereshteh Didegah, 2022. "The association between topic growth and citation impact of research publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(4), pages 1903-1921, April.
    7. Shuo Xu & Liyuan Hao & Xin An & Hongshen Pang & Ting Li, 2020. "Review on emerging research topics with key-route main path analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(1), pages 607-624, January.
    8. Loet Leydesdorff, 2015. "Can intellectual processes in the sciences also be simulated? The anticipation and visualization of possible future states," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(3), pages 2197-2214, December.
    9. Ali Najmi & Taha H. Rashidi & Alireza Abbasi & S. Travis Waller, 2017. "Reviewing the transport domain: an evolutionary bibliometrics and network analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(2), pages 843-865, February.
    10. Zhentao Liang & Jin Mao & Kun Lu & Gang Li, 2021. "Finding citations for PubMed: a large-scale comparison between five freely available bibliographic data sources," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(12), pages 9519-9542, December.
    11. Li, Xin & Xie, Qianqian & Jiang, Jiaojiao & Zhou, Yuan & Huang, Lucheng, 2019. "Identifying and monitoring the development trends of emerging technologies using patent analysis and Twitter data mining: The case of perovskite solar cell technology," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 687-705.
    12. Alba Santa Soriano & Carolina Lorenzo Álvarez & Rosa María Torres Valdés, 2018. "Bibliometric analysis to identify an emerging research area: Public Relations Intelligence—a challenge to strengthen technological observatories in the network society," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(3), pages 1591-1614, June.
    13. Serhat Burmaoglu & Olivier Sartenaer & Alan Porter & Munan Li, 2019. "Analysing the theoretical roots of technology emergence: an evolutionary perspective," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(1), pages 97-118, April.
    14. Chengliang Liu & Qinchang Gui, 2016. "Mapping intellectual structures and dynamics of transport geography research: a scientometric overview from 1982 to 2014," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(1), pages 159-184, October.
    15. Petros Gkotsis & Antonio Vezzani, 2016. "Technological diffusion as a recombinant process," JRC Working Papers on Corporate R&D and Innovation 2016-07, Joint Research Centre.
    16. Manuel A. Vázquez & Jorge Pereira-Delgado & Jesús Cid-Sueiro & Jerónimo Arenas-García, 2022. "Validation of scientific topic models using graph analysis and corpus metadata," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(9), pages 5441-5458, September.
    17. Li, Menghui & Yang, Liying & Zhang, Huina & Shen, Zhesi & Wu, Chensheng & Wu, Jinshan, 2017. "Do mathematicians, economists and biomedical scientists trace large topics more strongly than physicists?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 598-607.
    18. Ana Teresa Santos & Sandro Mendonça, 2022. "Do papers (really) match journals’ “aims and scope”? A computational assessment of innovation studies," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(12), pages 7449-7470, December.
    19. Lu, Kun & Yang, Guancan & Wang, Xue, 2022. "Topics emerged in the biomedical field and their characteristics," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    20. Stephen F. Carley & Nils C. Newman & Alan L. Porter & Jon G. Garner, 2017. "A measure of staying power: Is the persistence of emergent concepts more significantly influenced by technical domain or scale?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(3), pages 2077-2087, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jas:jasssj:2017-14-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Francesco Renzini (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.