Institutional Complementarity and Inventive Performance in Nanotechnology

Abstract

Academics and policy makers are investigating the relations between science and technology in the emerging field of nano science and technology (NST) and the effectiveness of different institutional regimes. We use multiple indicators to analyze the performance of inventors working in NST. We clustered patents into three groups according to the scientific curricula of the inventors. The first group consists of patents whose inventors are all authors of at least one scientific publication in NST, while the second is made up of patents invented by individuals who have no scientific publication in the field. Thirdly, we isolated those patents that have at least one inventor who is also author of at least one scientific publication in NST. The underlining presumption of this classification is that of a proxy of different institutional complementarities of inventive collective action in NST.

Keywords: Science-technology relation; Emerging field; Nanotechnology; Patent quality; Inventive productivity