ARTICLE IN PRESS

Technovation 30 (2010) 229237

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Technovation
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/technovation

An empirical analysis of nanotechnology research domains

Nazrul Islam a,b,n, Kumiko Miyazaki b
a
b

Low Carbon Research Institute, Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, Bute Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF10 3NB, UK
Graduate School of Innovation Management, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 Ookayama, Meguro, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan

a r t i c l e in fo

Keywords:
Nanoscience and technology
Nanotechnology research domains
Tech mining
Empirical analysis

abstract
Research activities in nanotechnology have been strengthened worldwide since the last decade to
provide a foundation for technological advancement by grasping nanoscience and technology
opportunities. This paper aims to make a rened classication to understand the whole research
spectrum in nanotechnologies. We also provide an insight into horizontal comparisons between the
research domains using tech mining (Porter 2005) method. The ndings show the regional strengths and
weaknesses in nanotechnology research domains, indicating that the US has gained much strength in
bionanotechnology research relative to other domains, and the other regions (e.g. the EU, Japan, China,
South Korea and India) have gained their research strength in nanomaterials, nanoelectronics and
nanomanufacturing and tools. The paper contributes to the literature of nanotechnology management
by providing a categorization of nanotechnology research and offers a useful insight for academic and
industry practitioners in nanoscience and technology elds.
& 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
It has been nearly half a century since Nobel Prize winner
Richard Feynman advocated widespread nano-scale research by
delivering his famous speech Theres plenty of room at the
bottom in 1959, through which the nanotechnology concept rst
captured the worlds attention. Nanotechnology, a eld prioritized
and promoted by governments worldwide, comprises one of the
fastest-growing research areas in scientic and technical elds in
the world (National Science and Technology Council, 2006). Like
many areas of scientic and technological exploration, nanotechnology exists on the borders between disciplines and technology
domains. Several literatures explore nanotechnology as a multidisciplinary eld since it requires multi-disciplined networked
research (Meyer and Persson, 1998; Schummer, 2004; Rafols and
Meyer, 2007; Islam and Miyazaki, 2009), education and an
improvement in the level of human skills performance; it also
requires input from, amongst others, chemists, physicists, materials scientists, biologists, engineers and pharmacologists. What has
led to a breakthrough in nanotechnology is the rapid development
and application of nano-instruments for observing and manipulating matters in the nano-scale and the discovery of new
nanomaterials (e.g. carbon nanotube, fullerene) for developing the
building blocks of nanoproducts. Nanotechnology thus conforms

n
Corresponding author at: Low Carbon Research Institute, Welsh School of
Architecture, Cardiff University, Bute Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cathays
Park, Cardiff, CF10 3NB, UK. Tel.: + 44 29 2087 0798; fax: + 44 29 2087 4926.
E-mail address: [email protected] (N. Islam).

0166-4972/$ - see front matter & 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.technovation.2009.10.002

to a pattern of science-based innovation, where an important

revolution in analytical instruments, preceding discoveries and
subsequent technological advancement (Rosenberg, 1982) stimulated the exploration of nano-scale structures and the development of nano-scale technologies.
In the 21st century, nanotechnology is being considered as a
key technology of molecular or atomic engineering that might
have the potential to produce sweeping changes to almost all
aspects of human society beyond the scope of conventional
technologies (Roco and Bainbridge, 2002). For example, nanotechnology encompasses more distinct areas such as precision
engineering as well as electronics, electrochemical systems
(lab-on-a-chip devices) and mainstream biomedical applications
in areas as diverse as gene therapy, drug delivery and novel drug
discovery techniques. Many authors split nanotechnologies in
many ways, e.g. top-down nano and bottom-up nano (Kautt et al.,
2007; Walsh and Elders, 2003; Binns and Driscoll, 1999). As such,
nanotechnology is built upon many sciences and technologies and
is inherently complex. In nanotechnology there can be both a
mechanistic version (more materials science and microelectronics
inspired, having new or signicantly improved mechanical,
electrical and chemical properties or functions) and a bio-mimetic
version (more biotechnology inspired, having control of biological
systems in order to achieve desired and designed outcomes).
Earlier studies inform us well on the long-term time
perspective of the technology, its possible impacts and key actors
in the development of nanotechnology (Walsh, 2004; Yung-Chi
Shen et al., 2009). They inform us little on the evolution of the
nanotechnological elds of spectrum. A broad and rened
classication of nanotechnology research spectrum could enrich

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N. Islam, K. Miyazaki / Technovation 30 (2010) 229237

the literature of nanotechnology management. As nanotechnology

is mostly developed as a knowledge intensive sector, organizations (e.g. universities, public research institutes or company R&D
laboratories) have focused strongly on the science and technology
part of it. The main purpose of this study is to provide an
empirical analysis of the dynamics of nanotechnology research
domains, to compare specialization patterns among the leading
countries, and to show the evidence of growth rate and interdisciplinarity of domains. In this paper, it also seeks to identify
mature and immature domains for nanotechnology research. In
the following sections, literature related to this research is
reviewed and a general framework of nanoscience and technology
evolution is introduced. The research question and methodology
are then dened and claried. Afterwards research analyses,
ndings and implications have so far been presented and further
research activities are proposed.

2. Developing a general framework of nanoscience and

technology evolution
Since nanotechnology knowledge is highly dispersed and
extends beyond a particular technology sector, no single theory
or approach can explain nanoscience and technology evolution
dynamics. Theories and studies of technology and innovation
management argue that some changes in technology have so
pervasive impacts on the economy that they will entail a
techno-economic paradigm change (Dosi, 1982; Freeman and
Perez, 1988; Nelson and Winter, 1982; Perez, 2000). Possibly a

techno-economic paradigm change entails a disruption or renewal

of many existing industries as in the case of nanotechnology.
Such a possible major industrial transition is likely to take 2030
years since nanotechnology development appears analogous to
that of the two other major general-purpose technologies such as
biotechnology and ICT 2530 years ago (Freeman and Louc- a~ ,
2001). Several studies have argued for a possible techno
economic transition led by nanotechnology. Specically Wilson
(2002) argued that the aggressive growth of these two generalpurpose technologies cannot be sustained without nanotechnology. Ikezawa (2001) mentioned that nanotechnology provides
new possibilities of manufacturing and is likely to say that the
bottom-up manufacturing approach is a key to create new
nanotechnology paradigm.
The characterizing features and the visionary aspects of
nanotechnology make it challenging to analyse the determinants
of the innovation process as they are involved in a range of
scientic disciplines and technology domains. Besides, the
performance of public research institutions and private actors
that generate and disseminate nano-knowledge plays a signicant
role in the development of nanotechnological systems. In this
context, the innovation systems (SI) approach (Freeman, 1987;
Lundvall, 1992; Nelson, 1993; Edquist, 1997) seems adequate
to explore nanoscience and technology evolution framework.
Within the SI approach, a technological system requires some
unit of study or dimensions of analysis to delineate its boundaries
(Metcalfe, 1995; Carlsson et al., 2002). The general framework
related to nanoscience and technology evolution does not
center on exclusively national (Lundval, 1992), technological

Government and non-government

organizations, funding agencies
(policies, regulations, IPR, public and business interests)

Scientific Disciplines
(e.g. physics, chemistry,
material sciences, biology,
engineering sciences)

Manufacturing and
Commercialization

Nano-knowledge
generation

Nano-science
& technology
evolution

Nano-knowledge
dissemination
and use
Technology Domains
(e.g. materials, electronics,
manufacturing, biotechnology)

Institutions
(universities, PRIs, industries and firms)
Fig. 1. General framework of nanoscience and technology evolution.

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N. Islam, K. Miyazaki / Technovation 30 (2010) 229237

(Carlsson and Stankiewicz, 1991; Carlsson et al., 2002), or sectoral

aspects (Malerba, 2002), since things are little unusual in the case
of nanotechnology as it is not really a specic technology or
product group, nor is there any dened group of scientic
disciplines and/or technology domains behind its development.
Drawing on national and technological systems approaches and
considering additional elements to ll the gaps and adapt the
approaches to the specicities of nano-knowledge creation and
dissemination, the authors dene a general framework within
which major elements and the relevant institutions or organizations are embedded to shape the technology evolution. Fig. 1 is an
overview of this framework.
Generally, nanotechnology research has been developed
mainly in universities and public research institutes where
scientic disciplines, such as chemistry, physics, materials
sciences and biology are extensively involved in the relevant
research to explore nano-science as a scientic curiosity and
through government initiatives drives. The basic scientic
disciplines connect to different types of technology domains. For
example, within electronics, demands for increased performance
through smaller components have paved the way to the nanoscale. The driver in materials sector has been the search for new
properties in materials. In recent times, performance demands in
new materials have also come from biotechnology through the
development of regenerative medicine and drug delivery. Similarly, companies complement their activities by interacting with
each other and help the technology evolution through manufacturing and commercialization. Under the proposed framework,
the regulatory infrastructures (e.g. standards, ethics), public
policies and funding allocation system constitute important
elements for fostering nanotechnology research across institutions, such as universities, public research institutes and companies. Therefore, institutions are getting involved, initially, for the
generation of nano-knowledge to grasp scientic and technological opportunities. The paper also argues that nanoscience and
technology evolution is not one directional, rather different
technology domains and disciplines interact, and government
and institutional infrastructures are supporting them to evolve.
Under the proposed framework, we would rather focus on
identifying specic research domains through which nanoknowledge generates and then disseminates the knowledge by
manufacturing and commercialization.

3. Research method
Bibliometric quantication is an effective way to show the
emergence and development of a new technology (Braun et al.,
1997). Over the past few years, several attempts have been made to
study nanoscience and technology management (for example, two
journals called Research Policy and Technological Forecasting & Social
Change were published with their special issues on nanotechnology). The studies over the years can be grouped into several
categories, such as: (1) Nanoscience and nanotechnology interactions (Zhou and Leydesdorff, 2006, Hullmann and Meyer, 2003;
Meyer, 2000); (2) The realization of nanotechnologies potential
(Roco and Bainbridge, 2002, Nordmann, 2004); (3) The productivity
of publications and patents in a bibliometric manner (Islam and
Miyazaki, 2009; Lee et al., 2009; Zucker and Darby, 2006; Kostoff
et al., 2004; Zucker et al., 2002; Braun et al., 1997). Existing studies
lack the classication of nanotechnology research domains, which
we think can make a worthy contribution to enrich the literatures
in nanoscience and technology management. The practitioners in
this eld can greatly benet from an examination of the status of
entire research domains and the dynamics of nano-knowledge
generation and their revealed technology advantages. The tech

231

mining method proposed by Porter and Cunningham (2005) is used

in this study which draws heavily a signicant impact on the
analysis in segmenting nanotechnology research spectrum.
Nanoscience and technology comprises a range of scientic
elds that cover a large amount of research activities and the
application of research is spreading into every industrial sectors.
Therefore, an engineering database covering multidisciplinary
applied research outputs would be a better choice. Our analysis is
based on relevant scientic outputsnanotechnology-related
academic publications from Elsevier Engineering Index (EI)
Compendex database covering a 15-year period (19902004),
using specialist keywords derived from the Nano Science and
Technology Institute (NSTI) publications, starting with the rst
academic articles and tracking almost the entire lifecycle of the
technology. This paper attempts to answer the questions: (1)
Which areas of nanotechnologies are currently state of the art and
how mature are they? (2) How is the involvement of organizations, regions or countries in the development of nanotechnology
knowledge? (3) Which areas of research are most important for
specic types of organizations and for specic regions? In this
paper, tech mining method is applied which analyzes the relations
between actors and technologies within a given innovation
system based on the input data from the article database.
Subsequent analysis is performed using a dedicated tech mining
software VantagePoint, automating mining and clustering of
terms occurring in article abstracts and article descriptors such
as authors, afliations or keywords. In addition, VantagePoint
helps us to statistically and textually analyze articles, cluster
thousands of keywords or specialist terms occurring in abstracts,
thus increasing the reliability of the ndings and opening up new
analytical opportunities for emerging technologies such as
nanotechnology. The article abstracts from the database were
imported to VantagePoint from which duplicates or empty
records, typographical errors (typos) in afliation name and
related geo-graphical information, name variations, inconsistency
among each elds from different articles were removed. We
double checked the raw records, cleaned our data set and
facilitated the subsequent analyses.

4. Classication of nanotechnology research domains

Nanotechnological research has attained much interest recently in the global scientic and technical agenda due to its
versatile potential applications. In this section, the quantitative
analysis involves the classication of nanotechnology research
domains. In order to divide whole nanoscience and technology
research articles into distinctive domains, we use article keywords
and EI codes dened by Elsevier Compendex. EI codes are
standardized and nested structures used to assign every article
extracted from the database. Every article may be assigned to one
or more EI codesas interdisciplinary research will fall into
several categories and consequently have several EI codes. Every
keyword from the articles has also been assigned to relevant
research domains. Therefore this categorization scheme is more
reliable than the traditional paper-based bibliometric research.
Following this method and the interpretations from specialist
technical literature, we have decided to divide the entire
nanotechnology-related applied research outputs into four domains, for example, nanomaterials, nanoelectronics, bionanotechnology, and nanomanufacturing and tools. Table 1 demonstrates a
rened classication of nanotechnology research domains
including domain names, short description, examples of EI codes
and the relevant keywords. For every domain, detailed lists of
relevant EI codes were identiedspecic domains corresponded
in general to distinctive EI classes (e.g. nanomaterials: EI codes 5.x

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N. Islam, K. Miyazaki / Technovation 30 (2010) 229237

Table 1
Classication of nanotechnology research domains.
Domain name

Short description

Examples of
codes

Bionanotechnology

Bionanotechnology concerns with molecular scale properties and applications

of biological nanostructures. It can be used in medicine to provide a
systematic, as well as a screening, approach to drug discovery, to enhance both
diagnostic and therapeutic techniques and to image at the cellular and subcellular levels.
Nanoelectronics focuses nanoscale properties and applications of
semiconductor structures and devices, and process technology to explore
economic and performance benets in computing, information and
communication system.
Nanomaterials concern with control of the structure of materials at nanoscale
with great potential to create a range of advanced materials with novel
characteristics, functions and applications.
Nanomanufacturing attempts at building more intricate (information-rich,
self-assembly) nanostructures. In addition, tools concern its ability to
manipulate and characterize materials at the nanoscale.

Compendex EI Biological nanosensors, nanobiomagnetics,

code 4.x
nanocantelevers, targeted nano-therapeutics,
nanoreplication, nanoencapsulation

Nanoelectronics

Nanomaterials

Nanomanufacturing
and tools

Examples of keywords

Compendex EI Nanodevices, quantum dot lasers, nanosensors,

code 6.x and
nanocrystal memory, molecular electronics,
7.x
nanorobotics
Compendex EI
code 5.x and
8.x
Compendex EI
code 9.x

Nanomaterial, fullerenes, nanocomposite,

nanolms, carbon nanotubes, nanoparticles
Nanoprototyping, nanofabrication,
nanolithography, scanning tunneling
microscopy, atomic force microscopy

Table 2
Publications share in nanotechnology research domains.
Total number of publications by domains - *

1919

24,267

3847

28,019

Year
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004

Bionanotechnology
0
0
0
0
9
21
22
17
34
37
35
108
214
421
1001

Nanoelectronics
2
1
18
18
223
856
965
1067
892
1241
1423
2208
3113
4547
7693

Nanomanufacturing and tools

0
0
2
3
37
148
129
107
93
165
171
312
480
741
1459

Nanomaterials
2
1
18
19
280
1034
1158
1329
1122
1548
1757
2551
3595
5178
8427

and 8.x; nanoelectronics: EI codes 6.x and 7.x; bionanotechnology:

EI code 4.x; and nanomanufacturing and tools: EI code 9.x). There
were many individual variances and many of the several hundred
sub-classes were excluded from or assigned to other domains. In
this way, an exclusive list of EI codes for every nanotechnology
research domain was generated and used it to classify
nanotechnology research.

5. Horizontal comparisons of nanotechnology research

domains
In this section, we focus identifying the leading and emerging
sectors of nanotechnology, compare the horizontal discourse
development in domains and analyze the distinctive research
proles of individual countries. In addition, we identify diversity
and similarity of domains as well as the interdisciplinarity. The
variation of nanotechnology applied research outputs is illustrated in Table 2, which indicates that nanomaterials and
nanoelectronics domains shows their superiority in terms of
publications. The nding also show that overall research output
increases slowly from the early 1990s and then increases rapidly
since the early 2000s (Fig. 2). Research activity in other two
domains such as bionanotechnology and nanomanufacturing and

tools is slowly picking up which is instructive in that they are still

emerging sectors for nanotechnology.
From the characterized nanotechnology domains, we get a
completely different picture when we compare the average
growth rate of publications. In bionanotechnology, the average
growth rate exceeds 40%, although the total publications share
stands below 5%. On the other hand, the average growth rate is not
exceeded more than 20% in nanoelectronics and nanomaterials
domains, while the total publications share exceeds 40%. The
results are illustrated in the Fig. 3, which interprets that biotechnology domain is a rapid growing eld for nanotechnology,
manufacturing and tools show moderate growth, and electronics
and materials domains are indicating the slow growth. The
research also forecasts the mature and immature domains for
nanotechnology. Fig. 4 forecasts that large sized (in terms of
articles volume) domains, for example, materials and electronics
domains with slower growth rate are said to be more mature in
terms of applied research and look for new applications. While
small sized manufacturing and tools and biotechnology domains
with moderate to higher growth rate are said to be most
promising and emerging elds in the near future.
Fig. 5 compares the regional nanotechnology research
activities, although the absolute number varies due to the
number of researchers involved in the relevant regions. When

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233

10000
Bionanotechnology
Nanomanufacturing

8000

Nanoelectronics
Nanomaterials

6000
4000
2000

04

03

20

20

02
20

01
20

00

99

20

19

98
19

97
19

96

95

19

19

94
19

93
19

92

91

19

19

19

90

Fig. 2. Nanotechnology domains research output.

Bionanotechnology
Nanomanufacturing

Nanoelectronics
Nanomaterials

Growth rate

Number of
publications

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Fig. 3. Comparison of nanotechnology domains growth rate.

comparing the regional strengths and weaknesses, US leads

exceptionally in biotechnology sector focusing on biological
aspects of nanotechnology relative to the other regions. The
result interprets in a way that the strength in bionanotechnology
may either represent a potential support by public and private
funding or by the presence of high critical mass of expertise. The
EU countries show their strong activity in researching
nanomaterials domain. The reason may be the involvement of
recently established interdisciplinary research centres (IRC),
within and outside the universities across Europe, explore the
new properties and functions of nanomaterials. The Asian player,
for example, Japan, China, South Korea and India show their
strong research performances in nanoelectronics and nanomaterials domains considered by some to be areas that may
quickly become a commodity, while the performances in
bionanotechnology and nanomanufacturing have lagged behind.
Fig. 6 illustrates a comparison with respect to specic types of
organizations, such as universities, public research institutes and
private companies. The nding indicates that universities are the
main actors for generating nanotechnology knowledge and public
research institutes complement them. Private companies account
for little contributions to nanotechnology knowledge generation,
i.e. nanotechnology research engagement with industry still face
challenges. The part of reason is that industry itself either does not
understand the opportunities of nanotechnology or not willing to
take a risk due to the market uncertainties. As illustrated in the
gure, it clearly indicates that nanomaterials and nanoelectronics
have reached to mature research areas with respect to the high
volume of publications compared to other domains such as
bionanotechnology and nanomanufacturing and tools that seem
to be the emerging sectors for nanotechnology.
The research then looked at to see whether any overlapping
between the domains exists, and how much is the overlapping

interest. Table 3 represents an auto-correlations chart between

the domains, calculated by tech mining software VantagePoint.
Very low correlations value from the nding suggests that there
are no direct overlaps between the singled out domains, even
though many articles are classied as belonging to other domains.
Overlapping of the research interests may exist with respect to
high value of correlation. Very small values of correlation from the
nding, as illustrated in Table 3, suggests the divergence of
nanotechnology research interest without or little overlapping.
Nanotechnology research has already been considered as a
eld of more inter-disciplinary than other areas of sciences.
Table 4 shows the inter-disciplinary character of nanotechnology
research, as the fractional percentage volume data illuminates
bridging between the domains, instead of showing their majority
in one discrete domain (data were calculated by tech mining
software VantagePoint). The nding is so instructive that
nanotechnology research has mastered a diversity of areas that
originated from different scientic and technological elds.

6. RTA prole analysis of regions in nanotechnology research

domains
The data were then converted to calculate regional advantages
in nanotechnology as it seems better to compare on a relative
rather than on an absolute basis. The transformation widely
adopted in recent work on comparative technological development at both country and sector level is the Revealed Technological Advantage (Cantwell, 1993). To view a comparative dynamics
on nanotechnology knowledge domains, we compare the ndings
between the West and the East regions. The dynamic changes in
the comparative positions of different regions are identied by a
tool introduced by Patel and Pavitt (1997) for categorizing the
technological competencies of rms in the Science and Technology poles. The X-axis represents the share of publication activities
and the Y-axis indicates the Revealed Technology Advantage (RTA)
of countries to measure the comparative advantage of scientic
and technological strength. The RTA-index has been used as an
approximation of the advantages in certain technology elds,
consists of the ratio of the number of patents of a country in a
particular technological sub-domain, divided by the total number
of patents in this sub-domain, and the number of patents of the
country under study in the whole eld, divided by the total
P
P
P
number of patents in the eld RTA= (Pij/ iPij)/( jPij/ ijPij); The
rms RTA in each technological eld is similar to the revealed
scientic advantage (RSA) measure which can be used to assess
the scientic performance of the regions.
A value above 1 indicates relative strength and a value less
than 1 indicates relative weakness. The regions of high share and

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N. Islam, K. Miyazaki / Technovation 30 (2010) 229237

Look for new

applications

25000

total number of publications

Nanomaterials

20000

Nanoelectronics

15000
Seem to be
emerging fields

10000

5000

Nanomanufacturing
Bionanotechnology

0
0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

average growth rate of publications

Fig. 4. Forecasting of nanotechnology domains.

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%
Bionanotechnology

Nanoelectronics

Nanomanufacturing

India

23

354

69

Nanomaterials

South Korea

29

855

115

957

China

121

365

Japan

147

236
3496

447

3002
3935

United States

685

6194

European Union

391

6139

1029
935

6992
7098

452

Fig. 5. Regional publication share in the domains.

high RTA can be interpreted as countries having relatively strong

share in the Science pole (i.e. relative importance to competencies
in nanotechnology) and having distinctive advantage nationally.
The region of low share and low RTA reveals countries allocating
relatively less resources to technology or science and having less
distinctive advantage nationally. It is to be noted that the value of
the benchmark share in the X-axis is difcult to identify and varies
depending on various dimensions such as the countries or region
considered, innovation process analyzed, national requirements,
etc. In this case, a break-even share is chosen in order to accommodate all countries in such a way that a proper comparison of
their innovation or science performance be made. Fig. 7 illustrates
the relative comparison of strength of the US and the EU. The
result indicates that the position of the EU in bionanotechnology
domain lies in the low share and low RTA zone revealing their
weak competitiveness in the relevant research eld, while the US
is exceptionally positioned in the high share and high RTA zone.

Alternatively, the EU has gained much strength in nanomaterials

domain. The nding is an indicative that the US nanotechnology
research has focused and directed towards biotechnology sector,
i.e. nano-knowledge may apply in the elds of medicine (e.g. drug
discovery, drug development, drug targeting, and drug delivery)
and emphasis will be given to techniques used in pharmaceutical
applications.
Fig. 8 illustrates the relative comparison of strength between
the Asian countries. The result shows that Japan and South Korea
are gaining their research strength in nanoelectronics sector,
while China is showing its strength in nanomaterials, and India is
concentrating more in nanomanufacturing domain although their
publication shares lie in very low share zone. As evident in the
nding, Japan and South Korea are researching more on electronics sector to explore nanotechnologies top-down application
(e.g. production of IT chips, computer peripherals, and consumer
electronic devices). On the other hand, China is concentrating

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235

20000
15000
10000
5000
0
University

Public Research
Institute

Industry

Nanomaterials

18707

5908

1867

Nanoelectronics

15977

5036

1799

Nanomanufacturing

2407

749

335

Bionanotechnology

1195

266

130

Fig. 6. Organizational output share by domains.

Table 3
How different or similar are nanotechnology research domains?
Types of nanotech domains

Nanomaterials

Nanoelectronics

Nanomanufacturing and tools

Bionanotechnology

Nanomaterials
Nanoelectronics
Nanomanufacturing and tools
Bionanotechnology

1.00
0.01
-0.02
0.04

0.01
1.00
-0.07
0.01

-0.02
-0.07
1.00
-0.03

0.04
0.01
-0.03
1.00

Table 4
Inter-disciplinary character of nanotechnology research.
Types of nanotech domains

Nanomaterials

Nanoelectronics

Nanomanufacturing and tools

Bionanotechnology

Nanomaterials
Nanoelectronics
Nanomanufacturing and tools
Bionanotechnology

44.43
8.33
10.09
8.87

13.66
48.65
17.35
13.7

32.99
34.61
62.48
32.79

8.92
8.40
10.08
44.64

2
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

USA
Bionanotechnology

Nanoelectronics

Nanomanufacturing

Nanomaterials

10

20

30

40

50

2
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

EU

Nanomaterials
Nanomanufacturing

Nanoelectronics

Bionanotechnology

10

20

30

40

50

Fig. 7. RTA prole of European and American regions in nanotechnology domains.

solely on nanomaterials, since China continues to aggressively

support public-funded science parks and to small start-ups as
evidenced by its commitment to $2 billion Yuan ($240 million US)
during 200307 to this sector including another $23 billion Yuan
committed from local governments (Nemets, 2004). It seems

China to be the most likely contender for catching-up with

advanced countries. India is also a contender for catch up in the
Third World in the nanotechnology arena. Including public
infrastructures several grassroots organizations are sprouting up
to take advantage of nanomanufacturing domain. It is very

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236

N. Islam, K. Miyazaki / Technovation 30 (2010) 229237

2
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

2
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

JP

Nanoelectronics
Nanomaterials
Nanomanufacturing
Bionanotechnology

0
2
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

10

20

30

40

Bionanotechnology

30

Bionanotechnology

2
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
50
0

Nanoelectronics

20

Nanoelectronics
Nanomanufacturing

50

Nanomaterials
Nanomanufacturing

10

Nanomaterials

40

SK

CN

10

20

30

40

50

30

40

50

IND

Nanomanufacturing
Nanomaterials
Nanoelectronics
Bionanotechnology

10

20

Fig. 8. RTA prole of Asian regions in nanotechnology domains.

interesting to see that the direction of the Asian players are high
exponential in nature in their nanoscience pole.

7. Conclusions
The motivation to conduct this research is the increasing pace
of nanotechnology research and technology development worldwide. In this paper, the main output is a rene classication of
nanotechnology domains including the horizontal comparisons
and the regional strengths and weaknesses. The ndings show the
maturity of electronics and materials sectors in terms of
publication and forecast the emerging sectors for nanotechnology.
Although the overall publications share is much less in bionanotechnology, the average growth rate of publications in bionanotechnology is signicantly higher than the other domains, which
is instructive as the emerging sector for nanotechnology. Further,
this research has proved the divergence and interdisciplinary
character of nanotechnology by focusing the inter-domains
comparisons.
The present study has characterized and analyzed the
importance of specic nanotechnology domains for the East and
the West regions. Relative to other domains, bionanotechnology
research sector has been gaining much strength in the US and
lagging behind in other regions. When comparing regional
strengths and weaknesses, US leads exceptionally in bionanotechnology, which seems either a potential support in the relevant
research domain by public and private nance or the potential
interest of critical mass of expertise to explore the biological
applications. The EU countries show their strong activity in
researching nanomaterials domain. European organizations are
much interested on the exploration of new functionalities and
properties of nanomaterials (e.g. CNTs and Fullerene) for the
efcient application in a range of sectors, for example, coatings,
fabrics, paints, thin lms, healthcare products and fuel additives.
On the other hand, the Asian players (e.g. Japan, China, South

Korea and India) have shown their strong research performances

in nanoelectronics and nanomaterials domains, while they have
lagged greatly behind in bionanotechnology.
Within technological systems of innovation, the studies in the
dynamics of nano-knowledge generation and the horizontal
comparison of nanotechnology research domains have proved a
worthy contribution to enrich the literature. Therefore, it would
be useful to adopt strategies that could facilitate in building a
network platform for sharing or exchanging nano-expertise and
nano-information across domains. The limitations and gaps of
existing studies in the emerging nanotechnology eld led to the
initial idea of a more comprehensive analysis on nanotechnology
domains that have so far been accomplished in this paper. This
research calls for further research to understand the differing
technologies within a domain and their interface with other
technologies. It is expected that more knowledge about understanding nanotechnological systems can be obtained through
further research in order to increase its robustness.

Acknowledgement
The authors wish to express their thanks to the anonymous
referees for their constructive remarks on this paper, which
improved its quality. Valuable comments and suggestions made
by Alan Porter from Georgia Tech are highly appreciated.
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Dr. Nazrul Islam is a Post-Doctoral

Research Fellow in the Low Carbon
Research Institute at the Welsh
School of Architecture, Cardiff University. He has received his D.Eng.
in the area of Innovation focusing
nanotechnology. Dr. Islam also
holds M.Eng. and M.Sc. in Applied
Chemistry and Chemical Technology. His areas of research interest
include the management of nanotechnology innovation,
nanotechnology forecasting and roadmapping, life cycle
assessment of nanotechnologies, and the development of
new research methods. In the recent years, he has
developed innovative concepts and new research methods in the area of innovation and technology management. He has authored over 30 journal and conference
papers including several book chapters on the topic. He
serves as a peer-reviewer to the UK research council and
many journals. Dr. Islams publications have received
academic awards including the Pratt & Whitney Canada:
Best Paper Award in Innovation Management. He is an
associate member of the Institute of Nanotechnology, a
member of IAMOT and ISPIM. (Further details are
available at /http://drnazrul201.googlepages.comS.

Dr. Kumiko Miyazaki is a Professor in the eld of

Strategic Management of Technology and S&T policy in
the Graduate School of Innovation Management at the
Tokyo Institute of Technology. She has a degree in physics
from Oxford, a graduate degree in computer science from
Cambridge, an INSEAD MBA and a Ph.D. in Science and
Technology Policy from University of Sussex (SPRU,
Science Policy Research Unit). She has been Honorary
Professor of University of Sussex (SPRU) since 2000. She is
the author of Building Competences in the Firm, Lessons
from Japanese and European Optoelectronics (Macmillan,
1995). Kumiko Miyazaki is a member of several advisory
councils for the public sector, including the Information
and Communications Council, Space Activities Commission and the Council for Science and Technology and the
Aircraft Council for METI. She is a member of IEEE (EMS),
Japan Society for Science Policy and Research Management, INFORMS, Strategic Management Society and
JASMIN.