What Do We Know About Advanced Technology: Approaches for Definition and Measurement

Studies in advanced technology primarily associated with new developments in technics and specifically microelectronics institutionalized as a distinct area of research and engineering in 1960s. Since that period, there is continuous interest in rise, maturity and dissemination of new technologies as well as in the deeper analysis of communica-tion networks that shape discourses on related issues, especially from the policy-making perspective. The paper focuses on the evolution of perceptions about advanced technol-ogies represented in academic papers for the period from 1960 to 2015. In order to iden-tify structure of discussions we applied co-citation and keyword analysis built for the dataset of relevant academic publications derived from the Web of Science database for the above-mentioned period. We also analyzed datasets that included social and natural sciences and compared results. Analysis of united dataset suggested the mutual adoption of natural and social sciences perception of advanced technology. Thus, the keyword maps showed changes from economical and social questions about advanced technologies to more specific that included technological terms. On average, the development of natural classifications of advanced technologies coincided with the dynamics of keywords and co-citation net-works. The analysis of separated datasets suggested almost absence of adoption of the term by natural sciences, and only a little degree of adoption by social sciences. It was investigated that advanced technology concept development was mostly driven by so-cial scientists. Considering absence of classical papers, related journals, dense research communities it was concluded that advanced technology studies does not comprise a separate research field.