The impact of individual collaborative activities on knowledge creation and transmission

Abstract

Collaboration is a major factor in the knowledge and innovation creation in emerging science-driven industries where the technology is rapidly changing and constantly evolving, such as nanotechnology. The objective of this work is to investigate the role of individual scientists and their collaborations in enhancing the knowledge flows, and consequently the scientific production. The methodology involves two main phases. First, the data on all the nanotechnology journal publications in Canada was extracted from the SCOPUS database to create the co-authorship network, and then employ statistical data mining techniques to analyze the scientists’ research performance and partnership history. Also, a questionnaire was sent directly to the researchers selected from our database seeking the predominant properties that make a scientist sufficiently attractive to be selected as a research partner. In the second phase, an agent-based model using Netlogo has been developed to study the network in its dynamic context where several factors could be controlled. It was found that scientists in centralized positions in such networks have a considerable positive impact on the knowledge flows, while loyalty and strong connections within a dense local research group negatively affect the knowledge transmission. Star scientists appear to play a substitutive role in the network and are selected when the usual collaborators, i.e., most famous, and trustable partners are scarce or missing.

Appendix: List of nanotechnology keywords (based on Moazami et al. 2015)

Search term	Search queries
Nano* terms	“nano assembly”, “nano computer”, “nano cubic technology”, “nano molecular machine”, “nano optic”, “nano optical tweezers”, “nano warfare”, “nanoarray”, “nanoassembler”, “nanobarcode”, “nanobarcodes particle”, “nanobioprocess”, “nanobot”, “nanobotics”, “nanobots”, “nanobubble”, “nanobusiness alliance”, “nanobusiness company”, “nanocatalysis”, “nanoceramic”, “nanochemistry”, “nanochip”, “nanocircle”, “nanocluster”, “nanocomputer”, “nanocone”, “nanocontact”, “nanocrystal”, “nanocrystal antenna”, “nanodefense”, “nanodentistry”, “nanodetect”, “nanodevice”, “nanodiamond”, “nanodisaster”, “nanodot”, “nanoelectrospray”, “nanoengineering”, “nanofacture”, “nanofacty”, “nanofiber”, “nanofibre”, “nanofiltration”, “nanofluidic”, “nanofoam”, “nanogate”, “nanogear”, “nanogenomic”, “nanoimaging”, “nanoimprint lithography”, “nanoimprint machine”, “nanoimprinting”, “nanolabel”, “nanolithography”, “nanomachine”, “nanomagnet”, “nanomanipulat”, “nanomanipulation”, “nanomanufacturing”, “nanomaterial”, “nanomechanical”, “nanomot”, “nanoparticles”,nanowire”, “nanope”, “nanope”, “nanopharmaceutical”, “nanophotonic”, “nanophysic”, “nanoplumbing”, “nanoprism”, “nano-ring”, “nanoscale self assembly”, “nanoscale synthesis”, “nanoscience”, “nanoscopic scale”, “nanoscopic scale”, “nanosens”, “nanosheet”, “nanoshell”, “nanosource”, “nanostructure”, “nanostructured”, “nanosurgery”, “nanosystem”, “nanotechism”, “nanotechnology”, “nanotube”, “nanotube bundle”, “nanowalker”, “nanowetting”
Quantum terms	“quantum cascade laser”, “quantum coherence”, “quantum computation”, “quantum compute”, “quantum computer”, “quantum 116 computing”, “quantum conduct”, “quantum conductance”, “quantum conductivity”, “quantum confine”, “quantum device”, “quantum dot”, “quantum gate”, “quantum information”, “quantum information process”, “quantum mirage”, “quantum nanophysics”, “quantum nanomechanics”, “quantum system”, “quantum well”
Molecular* terms	“molecular assembler”, “molecular machine”, “molecular nanogenerat”, “molecular nanotechnology”, “molecular robotic”, “molecular scale manufacturing”, “molecular systems engineering”, “molecular technology”
Self assembly terms	“fluidic self assembly”, “nanoscale self assembly”, “self assembled”
Atomic terms	“atomic manipulation”, “atomic nanostructure”
Other terms	“biofabrication”, “biomedical nanotechnology”, “biomimetic synthesis”, “biomolecular assembly”, “biomolecular nanoscale computing”, “biomolecular nanotechnology”, “bionems”, “brownian assembly”, “buckminsterfullerene”, “buckyball”, “buckytube”, “c60 molecule”, “carbon nanotubes”, “conductance quantization”, “dna chip”, “electron beam lithography”, “epitaxial film”, “epitaxy”, “fat fingers problem”, “ganic led”, “glyconanotechnology”, “grey.goo”, “immune machine”, “khaki goo”, “laser tweezer”, “limited assembler”, “military nanotech.”, “moletronic”, “naneplicat”, “nanite”, “optical trapping”, “protein design”, “protein engineering”, “proximal probe”, “rotaxane”, “single cell manipulation”, “spin coating”, “stewart platfm”, “sticky fingers problem”, “textronic”, “universal assembler”, “utility fog”, “zettatechnology”