The evolution of science policy and innovation studies

Abstract

This article examines the origins and evolution of the field of science policy and innovation studies (SPIS). Like other studies in this Special Issue, it seeks to systematically identify the key intellectual developments in the field over the last 50 years by analysing the publications that have been highly cited by other researchers. The analysis reveals how the emerging field of SPIS drew upon a growing range of disciplines in the late 1950s and 1960s, and how the relationship with these disciplines evolved over time. Around the mid-1980s, substantial parts of SPIS started to coalesce into a more coherent field centred on the adoption of an evolutionary (or neo-Schumpeterian) economics framework, an interactive model of the innovation process, and (a little later) the concept of ‘systems of innovation’ and the resource-based view of the firm. The article concludes with a discussion of whether SPIS is perhaps in the early stages of becoming a discipline.

Introduction

The field of science policy and innovation studies (SPIS) is now around 50 years old. From humble beginnings involving just a few researchers in the late 1950s, it has grown to become a significant field involving several thousand researchers (Fagerberg and Verspagen, 2009). Some of its contributions have had a major impact on neighbouring disciplines as well as within the field itself. It is therefore timely to look back and analyse what has been achieved.

The overall aim of this exploratory study is to systematically identify the most influential intellectual developments in the field of SPIS and analyse how these have evolved over time with a view to addressing the following research questions. First, what are the intellectual origins of the field and the disciplines upon which it has drawn, and how have these relationships evolved over time? Secondly, is the field beginning to coalesce around a common conceptual framework and set of analytical tools? Thirdly, are there potential links with other fields that are either absent or only weakly developed, and, if so, why? Fourthly, what is the geographical breakdown of important SPIS advances, in particular with regard to the relative contributions of North America and Europe, and what might explain that breakdown? Finally, is SPIS perhaps in the early stages of becoming a discipline?

To address these questions, however, we first need to construct a systematic overview of the field. Such an overview may be useful for research students or ‘newcomers’ to the field, and to academic faculty developing lecture courses and reading lists. It may also offer SPIS ‘insiders’ a more comprehensive ‘map’ of field as a whole, especially of areas seen as less directly linked (e.g. work on medical or health innovations, or on organisational and other non-technological forms of innovation). More specifically, it might enable researchers to identify ‘gaps’ in the field, or potential synergies between previously rather separate bodies of research, and hence offer guidance as to where they might most fruitfully concentrate their efforts. Lastly, the article may provide some insights as to how ideas originate and come to exert a major influence and how research fields develop. (However, detailed analysis of the factors affecting the impact of influential publications is left to future research.)

In what follows, Section 2 first defines the scope of the field of ‘science policy and innovation studies’, while Section 3 reviews the literature on previous attempts to map or review the field, including similar studies in neighbouring social science fields. Section 4 sets out the methodology employed to identify the SPIS contributions that have had most impact on the academic community. Section 5 then analyses the origins and early development of the field, as social scientists from a number of disciplines began to become interested in science, technology and innovation, while Section 6 focuses on the most influential contributions from the 1980s onwards, showing how SPIS by then was becoming a more coherent field centred on the adoption of an evolutionary economics framework, an interactive model of the innovation process, the concept of ‘systems of innovation’, and the resource-based view of the firm. Lastly, Section 7 discusses the broad findings with regard to the original research questions, assessing how far SPIS has coalesced as a field and whether there are any ‘missing links’ with neighbouring fields that, if developed, might further strengthen the field. We consider the large and growing dominance of US authors and identify possible reasons for this. Finally, we explore the question of whether SPIS is perhaps in the early stages of becoming a discipline.