The Evolution of Science Policy and Innovation Studies

Ben Martin

Working Papers from Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge

Abstract: This article examines the origins and evolution of the field of science policy and innovation studies (SPIS). In particular, it seeks to identify the key intellectual developments in the field over the last 50 years by analysing the publications that have been highly cited by other researchers. Along with other studies reported in this Special issue, it represents one of the first and most systematic attempts to identify and analyse the most influential contributions to an emerging field on the basis of highly cited books and articles. The analysis reveals how the emerging field of SPIS drew upon a growing range of disciplines in the late 1950s and 1960s, and how the relationship with these disciplines evolved over time. Around the mid-1980s, SPIS started to become a more coherent field centred on the adoption of an evolutionary (or neo-Schumpeterian) economics framework, and an interactive model of the innovation process, and (a little later) the concept of 'systems of innovation' and the resource-based view of the firm. The article concludes with a discussion of whether SPIS is perhaps in the early stages of becoming a discipline.

Keywords: innovation studies; science policy; history; evolution; highly cited publications; key contributions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B25 O30 O31 O32 O35 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-hpe, nep-ino, nep-knm and nep-sog
Note: PRO-1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (79)

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Journal Article: The evolution of science policy and innovation studies (2012)
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