Measuring the Knowledge Base: A Program of Innovation Studies

TL;DR

This paper develops a method to measure the knowledge base of society by analyzing communication traces through information theory, linking institutional structures to knowledge production.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining communication theory and empirical indicators to study the evolution of the knowledge base in society.

Findings

Indicators of knowledge production derived from communication traces

Institutional relations influence the transformation of the knowledge base

Policy implications for fostering knowledge-based societies

Abstract

Organized knowledge production can then be considered as the codification of communication. Communications leave traces that can be studied as indicators. Institutions can be considered as retention mechanisms functional for the reproduction of ever more complex, that is, scientific and knowledge-based, communications. The focus on communication enables us to operationalize the research questions in terms of indicators by using the mathematical theory of communication. The combination of two theories with a very different status--i.e., a combination of theory and methods--enables us to update and inform empirical hypotheses about how the knowledge base transforms the institutional relations of an increasingly knowledge-based society. Policy implications are specified.