Modeling Iranian innovation network in nanotech for policy: applying an adopted version of SKIN model

Purpose Iran Nanotechnology Initiative Council could significantly increase the production of scientific articles in the field by imposing ten-year incentive policies so that Iran ranked 7 in this area in the year 2015. But this progress was insufficient to speed up the production and commercialization of nanotechnology products and Iran ranked 44 with a share of 0.03 per cent of nanotechnology production in the world. Therefore, Iran Nanotechnology Initiative Council as a governmental policymaker institution in this area has sought for the policy threefold increase of funding to speed up the production and commercialization of products in this field. But given that the result was not so clear, this research was formed in the form of modeling Iran Nanotechnology Innovation Network and testing various scenarios to increase its efficiency. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses simulation framework of innovation networks (SKIN) in an attempt to model the production innovation network in Iran in the field of nanotechnology that can measure the effect of incentive policies in changing the network structure and, consequently, increasing the level and pace of innovation in it. Given that the volume of articles produced in Iranian universities in the field of Nanotechnology had a high speed and volume in comparison with the volume of technical knowledge produced by companies, and because the SKIN framework did not consider the distinction between the two, in the first step, the framework is developed using the model of absorptive capacity of knowledge provided by Cohen and Levinthal (1990) and then the developed model was used to model the Innovation Network. Findings Finally, two policies of threefold increase of budget (Scenario 1) and increasing the support for joint projects (with maintaining the current budget level) (Scenario 2) were tested in this model. The social network analysis method was used to analyze the results of the two scenarios, where innovation network topology was compared (as an index to measure the network efficiency) in three states of current status of the network (the baseline scenario), implementing the first and second scenarios of extraction and with each other. Originality/value This paper models Iranian Nanotechnology Innovation Network for studying the evolution of the network as a result of executing different supportive scenarios.