Technological Emergence Indicators Using Emergence Scoring

Indicators of technological emergence promise valuable intelligence to those determining R&D priorities. We present an implemented algorithm to calculate emergence scores for topical terms from abstract record sets. We offer a family of emergence indicators deriving from those scores. Primary emergence indicators identify "hot topic" terms, then we use those to generate secondary indicators that reflect organizations, countries, or authors especially active at research frontiers in a target domain. We also flag abstract records (papers or patents) rich in emergent technology content, and we score technological fields on relative degree of emergence. We show illustrative results for example topics -- Nano-Enabled Drug Delivery, Non-Linear Programming, Dye Sensitized Solar Cells, and Big Data.