Convergence of innovation in the nanotechnology paradigm across countries

Convergence in innovation implies a paradigm in which the findings and creation of technology happen at the intersection of multiple disciplines and organizations. Nanotechnology is revealed as a new technological paradigm, one that offers a radically new solution to technological problems and that brings to the fore a new wave of processes, products and social and organizational systems. Thus, innovation convergence in nanotechnology involves sources of scientific and technological knowledge and organizational methods that enable technological development. In this article we have set out to analyze the phenomenon of convergence in nanotechnology from the perspective of countries’ technological innovation dynamic, particularly if it is possible for countries to have innovation convergence in this technological paradigm. The findings of this research make it possible to corroborate the existence of long-term convergence in this new technological paradigm between countries, insofar as less-developed countries may achieve higher rates of growth in nanotechnological innovation than the country at the forefront, provided that such countries manage to accumulate more technological knowledge by citing patents prior to the patents granted in the field of nanotechnology.