Abstract
Nanotechnology is considered a key technology of the twenty-first century. It is widely expected that technological advances in the field of nanoscience will bring about social, environmental and economic benefits. Nanotechnology is also regarded as a paradigmatic field for a new “Mode 2” of knowledge production that is transdisciplinary in nature and oriented towards problem-solving. The aim of this chapter is to measure empirically the prevalence of “Mode 2 knowledge production” for research groups working in the field of nanoscience. Disciplinary differences are shown by comparing the knowledge generation in nanoscience to that of astrophysics (a field of science primarily concerned with basic research) and economics (a social science). In addition, it is determined to what extent policy instruments promote and generate this new form of knowledge production in all three fields. Finally, it is established what effect one of these policies – the promotion of science–industry ties – has on the scientific performance of research groups in nanoscience.
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Notes
- 1.
Even if Gibbons et al. do not mention the term Nanoscience, which was not yet in popular use at this time, they clearly describe this kind of research (Gibbons et al. 1994: 45, cf. also p. 19).
- 2.
- 3.
The term Nanotechnology implies a stronger emphasis of the application possibilities of the field than the term Nanoscience. In the following we use the term Nanoscience.
- 4.
Exemplary of this phenomenon is the 2002 report “Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance” for the National Science Foundation, edited by Roco and Bainbridge (2002), two major actors in the nano-policy area. According to the report, nanoscience should lead to an enhancement of the human mind, cognition, body, to the remedy of illnesses, military advancement, better food-production, new machine–body interfaces, etc.
- 5.
The terms transdisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity are distinguished differently by various authors. We consider transdisciplinarity to be an especially intensive form of interdisciplinarity (Jansen 2007: 110–112).
- 6.
The accordant articles were identified by a search strategy developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research.
- 7.
Gibbons et al. contrast knowledge production in social sciences with knowledge production in the humanities ; they consider the social sciences as being nearer to Mode 1 than the humanities. For a critique cf. Godin (1998).
- 8.
Rather then computing the significance of the field differences with a t-test, a bootstrap-t algorithm is used because of the small sample size (Efron 1982). The bootstrap method has the advantage of estimating the significance interval from the sample by drawing (in this case 1,000) samples (with placing back cases) from the sample.
- 9.
The operationalisation of network behaviour builds upon the qualitative analysis of the interviews with research group leaders in the first panel wave. A more detailed description is given in Franke et al. (2006).
- 10.
- 11.
The output indicator “number of publications ” is a count variable: As a count-data regression model in the first step a Poisson model was fitted and a test for overdispersion was applied. This test rejected the Poisson model on a 0% level. With the estimated overdispersion parameter of 0.445 a NegBin model was then computed. The dispersion parameter describes the heteroscedasticity of the model. If the variance does not grow proportionally to the expected value of the function, a NegBin model should be applied, otherwise the significance of the parameters could be overestimated.
- 12.
The negative sign of the squared term for the proportion of industry relations indicates the shape of the curvilinear relation.
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Jansen, D., von Görtz, R., Heidler, R. (2010). Is Nanoscience a Mode 2 Field? Disciplinary Differences in Modes of Knowledge Production . In: Jansen, D. (eds) Governance and Performance in the German Public Research Sector. Higher Education Dynamics, vol 32. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9139-0_3
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