Nanotechnology research in Turkey: A university-driven achievement

We deal with nanotechnology research activities in Turkey. Based on publication data retrieved from ISI Web of SSCI database, the main actors and the main characteristics of nanotechnology research in Turkey are identified. Following a brief introduction to nanoscience and nanotechnology research, it goes on with a discussion on nanotechnology related science and technology policy efforts in developing countries and particularly in Turkey. Then using bibliometric methods and social network analysis techniques, this paper aims to understand the main actors of the nanoscale research in Turkey and how they collaborate across institutes and disciplines. The research indicates that there has been an exponential growth in the number of research articles published by Turkish nanoscience and nanotechnology (NST) scholars for the last ten years. However, the analysis of the main characteristics of nanotechnology research carried out at Turkish universities indicates some drawbacks and barriers to the future development of nanotechnology research in Turkey. These barriers are (i) a high concentration of nanoscale research at certain universities; (ii) low level of interdisciplinarity; (iii) a large number of universities which are not well connected to other universities in the field, and finally (iv) low level of international collaborations. Finally, science and technology policy implications of this research are discussed in the conclusion.Emerging technologies nanotechnology, nanoscience, scientific publications, SSCI, bibliometric data, social network analysis, collaborations, interdisciplinarity, science and technology policies, emerging economies, Turkey.

Nanotechnology Publications and Patents: A Review of Social Science Studies and Search Strategies

This paper provides a comprehensive review of more than 120 social science studies in nanoscience and technology, all of which analyze publication and patent data. We conduct a comparative analysis of bibliometric search strategies that these studies use to harvest publication and patent data related to nanoscience and technology. We implement these strategies on 2006 publication data and find that Mogoutov and Kahane (2007), with their evolutionary lexical query search strategy, extract the highest number of records from the Web of Science. The strategies of Glanzel et al. (2003), Noyons et al. (2003), Porter et al. (2008) and Mogoutov and Kahane (2007) produce very similar ranking tables of the top ten nanotechnology subject areas and the top ten most prolific countries and institutions.nanotechnology, research and development, productivity, publications, patents, bibliometric analysis, search strategy

What is Nanoscience?\u27 - A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study of Nanoscience Researchers\u27 Experiences

Nanoscience and nanotechnology have been described as a research area that integrates many scientific and engineering disciplines. However, the integration of disciplines is so complex that the disciplinarity of nanoscience and nanotechnology remains undefined. As a result, the nanoscience and nanotechnology area is viewed as multidisciplinary, or interdisciplinary science, or even as a separate discipline and there is no consensus regarding its disciplinarity. The previous studies conducted in order to describe the disciplinarity associated with this area have focused mainly on political, institutional and external factors while the cognitive aspects of disciplinarity of nanoscience and nanotechnology are still less understood. As a consequence, what is needed from the curricula and training programmes to ensure the growth of this area is not fully understood. When there are strong predictions about the need for an extensive workforce in the nanoscience and nanotechnology area but the disciplinarity associated with it is less understood, it can have an adverse effect on the future of this area. This research fills the gap by aiming to achieve a greater understanding of the nanoscience and nanotechnology area and its associated disciplinarity. This research focused on examining postgraduate researchers’ experiences of nanoscience and nanotechnology research to explore the disciplinarity, knowledge, skills and competences associated with nanoscience research so that a deeper understanding of this area can be achieved. This research was conducted using hermeneutic interpretive phenomenological methodology to collect and interpret data from twenty five individual semi-structured interviews with postgraduate researchers working in the nanoscience and iii nanotechnology area. The research methodology was influenced by Max van Manen’s ideas of hermeneutic interpretive phenomenology and it was reshaped to best suit the research context and purpose. Examining the researchers’ experiences of nanoscience research made it possible to understand how postgraduate researchers perceive, understand and conduct nanoscience research. Further, the examination portrayed what knowledge, skills and competences the postgraduate researchers have applied when working in this area. The findings from this interpretive study revealed that the postgraduate researchers experienced the nanoscience and nanotechnology area essentially as a ‘boundary spanning’ experience which described their skills of crossing the disciplinary boundaries in order to understand nanoscience research. Furthermore, the researchers experienced mapping, i.e. their research was evaluated and judged by the researchers from other disciplines. The findings also indicated that the nanoscience and nanotechnology research displayed characteristics of both multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity and therefore they suggested that promoting any one particular approach and aiming to develop the researchers for either a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary platform would not be appropriate for this area. The postgraduate researchers needed the skills to work together with researchers from other disciplines and become good at boundary spanning in the nanoscience area. The interpretive findings were taken back to the postgraduate researchers through a quantitative survey and their agreement with the interpretations further enhanced the credibility of this hermeneutic phenomenological study. The hermeneutic phenomenological research gave a new way to explore the complex nanoscience area by examining the postgraduate researchers’ experiences and this research provided an enhanced understanding of the nanoscience and nanotechnology area and its disciplinarity

Why do Academic Scientists Engage in Interdisciplinary Research ?

This article provides a first empirical study of the determinants of the propensity to which academic scholars tend to perform interdisciplinarity research. For that purpose we introduce a measure of interdisciplinarity as the diversity of their research production across scientific domains. Our dataset concerns more than nine hundred permanent researchers employed by a large French university which is ranked first among French universities in terms of Impact. As expected we find that the traditional academic career incentives do not stimulate interdisciplinary research while having connections with industry does. The context of work in the laboratory (size, colleagues’ status, age and affiliations) strongly affects the propensity to undertake interdisciplinary research.Economics of science, Academic incentives, Interdisciplinary research, Laboratory, University.

Policy Makers’ Influence on the Emergence of a New Scientific Discipline: The Case of Nanotechnology in Ireland

Science has undergone tremendous changes since World War II with the blurring of boundaries between science, government, and industry, as well as the so-called convergence of scientific disciplines. Nanotechnology is an illustrative example of this phenomenon. Boundaries between all these spheres are challenged, renegotiated, and reshaped under the influence of the multiple actors involved. I question here the extent to which nanoscience and nanotechnology (N&N) are emerging as a new scientific discipline under the influence of science and technology policies. With the study of N&N in Ireland from the late 1990s onwards, a focus is placed on both the macro-meso and meso-micro levels of analysis. Through a comparative case study research design of six research teams, I describe that policy makers have, to a certain extent, restructured the physical boundaries of science to make them conform to the nanotechnology logic, whereas the social and mental boundaries are still ruled by an established paradigm logic. This is confirmed at the meso-micro level with the identification of the barriers that scientists with diverse backgrounds face in a multidisciplinary laboratory. Thus, nanotechnology as a general purpose technology has challenged and renewed our theoretical conceptions of technology management by affording possibilities for both radical and incremental innovations. Moreover, even though policy makers are more involved in the scientific activity, they have a limited impact on it by not being able to steer the cognitive structure of science. Boundaries, in these types of organisations, instead of being blurred, are becoming ever more complex

Ethics of conducting qualitative social science research in the emerging field of nanotechnology

In educational research, qualitative studies have varied meanings. This short paper reviews the conceptual underpinnings of ethics in qualitative social science research and its importance to the emerging field of nanotechnology. The paper is aimed at showing a pathway by which the researcher might tackle ethics in a more effective way to achieve the desired results and whether different ethical values are needed in qualitative social science research of nanotechnology.Ethics, Philosophy, Nanoscale, Humanists, Societal implications

Nanotechnology research in Turkey: A university-driven achievement

We deal with nanotechnology research activities in Turkey. Based on publication data retrieved from ISI Web of SSCI database, the main actors and the main characteristics of nanotechnology research in Turkey are identified. Following a brief introduction to nanoscience and nanotechnology research, it goes on with a discussion on nanotechnology related science and technology policy efforts in developing countries and particularly in Turkey. Then using bibliometric methods and social network analysis techniques, this paper aims to understand the main actors of the nanoscale research in Turkey and how they collaborate across institutes and disciplines. The research indicates that there has been an exponential growth in the number of research articles published by Turkish nanoscience and nanotechnology (NST) scholars for the last ten years. However, the analysis of the main characteristics of nanotechnology research carried out at Turkish universities indicates some drawbacks and barriers to the future development of nanotechnology research in Turkey. These barriers are (i) a high concentration of nanoscale research at certain universities; (ii) low level of interdisciplinarity; (iii) a large number of universities which are not well connected to other universities in the field, and finally (iv) low level of international collaborations. Finally, science and technology policy implications of this research are discussed in the conclusion