Detecting the emergence of technologies and the evolution and co-development trajectories in science (DETECTS): a ‘burst’ analysis-based approach

This work aims to detect the emergence of science and technology fields and to characterise science and technology trajectories. It proposes a new data mining approach, called ‘DETECTS’, for the identification of those research and innovative activities whose intensity increases sharply compared to previous levels and to other developments. This approach also allows monitoring the extent to which field and topic-specific activities further accelerate, stabilise or abate, and the time it takes for such dynamics to unfold. By applying the ‘DETECTS’ methodology on data from scientific publications and patents, this work sheds light on: the structure, articulation and relevance of the most important scientific and technological developments occurred during the period 1990–2011; the extent to which new fields arise from the cross-fertilisation of different technologies; the way in which advancements in science relate to technological progress; and the areas where future developments are likely to occur in the short and medium term. Results further suggest, somewhat unexpectedly, that in some focal technology fields considered, the acceleration in the development of science seems to closely follow the acceleration in the development of technologies, and not vice versa.