Investigating the evolving knowledge structures in new technology development

Abstract

The development of new technology has been identified as one of the key enablers to support business and economic growth in developed countries. For example, the United Kingdom (UK) has invested £968 Million into the creation of Catapult centres to provide ‘pull through’ of low Technology Readiness Level (TRL) research and science. While these Catapults have been instrumental in developing new technologies, the uptake of new technology within industry remains a considerable challenge. One of the reasons for this is that of skills and competencies, and in particular, defining the new skills and competencies necessary to effectively apply and operate the new technology within the context of the business. Addressing this issue is non-trivial because the skills and competencies cannot be defined a priori and will evolve with the maturity of the technology. Therefore, there is a need to create methods that enable the elicitation and definition of skills and competencies that co-evolve with new technology development, and what are referred to herein as knowledge structures. To meet this challenge, this paper reports the results from a dynamic co-word network analysis of the technical documentation from New Technology Development (NTD) programmes at the National Composites Centre (NCC). Through this analysis, emerging knowledge structures can be identified and monitored, and be used to inform industry on the skills & competencies required for a technology.