The technological paradigm of Nanosciences and Technologies: a study of science-technology time and space relations.

One of the most relevant theoretical insights into the characteristics of technological change is Dosi’s technological paradigm. Dosi aims to overcome technology-push and demand-pull theories into a framework closer to facts. The present contribution is set in this framework, aiming to find some evidence, starting from an empirical analysis, of the characteristics of technological paradigms. The context is the ex ante and preindustrialization phase of a highly knowledge-intensive paradigm, that of nanotechnologies and nanosciences. The present work exploits an empirical analysis related to patent citations, with particular regard to citations of scientific journal articles. Both the time and the space dimensions are explored. Results – strict time and space relations between patenting and previous scientific production – confirm some characteristics of technological paradigms envisaged both by the original work and by subsequent literature.