Identifying emerging technologies using expert opinions on the future: A topic modeling and fuzzy clustering approach

Wooseok Jang (), Yongtae Park () and Hyeonju Seol ()
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Wooseok Jang: Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information
Yongtae Park: Seoul National University
Hyeonju Seol: Chungnam National University

Scientometrics, 2021, vol. 126, issue 8, No 8, 6505-6532

Abstract: Abstract As technology rapidly advances with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, many emerging technologies have been developed in several technology sectors. These technologies can (1) provide breakthroughs and fast growth and (2) have a tremendous impact on social and technological development. Many previous studies have attempted to identify emerging technologies by constructing a deterministic methodology with journal and patent data. However, previous research frameworks are not well suited to discover potential future influences due to two limitations: (1) they rely on past and present data and (2) methodologies analyze technologies based on discovered data. In contrast to previous attempts, this study suggests a framework on how to identify whether candidate emerging technologies will intensively grow and affect social and technological fields in the future. To do so, this study collects “expert opinions on the future” which contain future-oriented experts’ opinions from general and focused technology communities. Topic modeling was then conducted using Latent Dirichlet Allocation to discover the underlying topics and technologies that will be of interest in the future. Lastly, to identify the actual emerging technologies, fuzzy clustering was conducted using diversity and centrality index scores for the candidate technologies. To conduct this empirical study, this work selected 12 food processing technologies addressing hazards that threaten microbial contamination in food. The results of the analysis indicate that three food processing technologies (Pulsed electric field, Cold atmospheric plasma, and nanotechnology in food processing) can be classified as emerging technologies.

Keywords: Emerging technology; Topic modeling; Diversity; Fuzzy clustering; Expert opinion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11192-021-04024-8

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