How can national capabilities to develop emerging technologies be measured? We use INSPEC and EI Compendex class codes to examine 33 countries' research and development activity. We select candidate emerging technologies based on the Rand Corporation's categories. We screen these to tally those that show strong recent, and increasing, R&D publication rates. The resulting measures show strong convergence; indeed, their lack of divergence is unsettling. Our measures suggest that China now stands forth as an ‘emerging technology’ research power comparable to Germany, the UK, and France. A number of other nations evidence a striking lack of R&D activity, posing questions about their longer-range high-tech competitiveness.
如何衡量国家开发新兴技术的能力?我们使用 IN
SPEC 和 EI Compendex 类别代码来研究 33 个国家的研发活动。我们根据兰德公司的分类选择候选新兴技术。我们对这些技术进行筛选,以统计出那些近期研发成果发表率较高且不断上升的技术。由此得出的衡量指标显示出很强的趋同性;事实上,它们之间缺乏差异的情况令人不安。我们的测量结果表明,中国现在已成为可与德国、英国和法国相媲美的 "新兴技术 "研究大国。其他一些国家则明显缺乏研发活动,这对它们在高科技领域的长期竞争力提出了质疑。