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Measuring a moving target: innovation studies in practice

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  • Andrea Scharnhorst

    (Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie Van Wetenschappen)

Abstract

This paper pays a tribute to Loet Leydesdorff’s work in a specific way. More than 20 years ago Loet Leydesdorff and myself designed a programme for future innovation studies “Measuring the knowledge base—a programme of innovation studies”. Although, the funding programme we envisioned eventually did not materialise, the proposal text set out the main lines of our research collaboration over the coming decades. This paper revisits main statements of this programme and discusses their remaining validity in the light of more recent research. Core to the Leydesdorff/Scharnhorst text was a system-theoretical, evolutionary perspective on science dynamics, newly emerging structures and phenomena and addressed the question to which extent they could be meaningful studied using quantitative approaches. This paper looks into three ‘cases’ – all examples of newly emerging institutional structures and related practices in science. They are all located at the interface between research and research infrastructures. While discussing how the programmatic ideas written up at the beginning of the 2000s still informs measurement attempts in those three cases, the paper also touches upon questions of epistemological foundations of quantitative studies in general. The main conclusion is that combining measurement experiments with philosophical reflection remains important.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea Scharnhorst, 2025. "Measuring a moving target: innovation studies in practice," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 130(6), pages 3155-3181, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:130:y:2025:i:6:d:10.1007_s11192-025-05308-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-025-05308-z
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Loet Leydesdorff & Ping Zhou, 2007. "Nanotechnology as a field of science: Its delineation in terms of journals and patents," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 70(3), pages 693-713, March.
    2. Loet Leydesdorff & Floortje Alkemade & Gaston Heimeriks & Rinke Hoekstra, 2015. "Patents as instruments for exploring innovation dynamics: geographic and technological perspectives on “photovoltaic cells”," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(1), pages 629-651, January.
    3. Etzkowitz, Henry & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2000. "The dynamics of innovation: from National Systems and "Mode 2" to a Triple Helix of university-industry-government relations," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 109-123, February.
    4. Christine L. Borgman & Andrea Scharnhorst & Milena S. Golshan, 2019. "Digital data archives as knowledge infrastructures: Mediating data sharing and reuse," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 70(8), pages 888-904, August.
    5. Peter Van Den Besselaar, 2001. "The cognitive and the social structure of STS," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 51(2), pages 441-460, June.
    6. Diana Hicks & Paul Wouters & Ludo Waltman & Sarah de Rijcke & Ismael Rafols, 2015. "Bibliometrics: The Leiden Manifesto for research metrics," Nature, Nature, vol. 520(7548), pages 429-431, April.
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