Tracing Emerging Irreversibilities and Development Pathways in the Field of Nanosensor Technologies

Abstract

Abstract Nanosensor technologies constitute a new emerging field of science and technology with tremendous innovation potential. However, as the technology is still in its infancy many uncertainties and unknowns exist. Nonetheless, due to high expectations and promises, the technology gained a lot of attention from governments, companies and universities as they see potential to benefit from the development and commercialization of such technologies. With their ongoing activities and interaction those actors shape the dynamics and characteristics of the field. Understanding these dynamics is important for actors attempting to benefit from the development. A key concept in this study - which contribute to the understanding of emerging technology dynamics - are emerging irreversibilities. Emerging irreversibilities are “patterns that enable certain actions and interactions (make it easier) and constrain others (make it more difficult to do something else)” (Van Merkerk & Robinson, 2006) and thus influence the development paths a technology follows. The aim of this thesis is to study and analyze the processes and mechanisms that influence the development of emerging technologies and explore how irreversibilities shape the development of nanosensor technologies. This research effort presents a new methodology to map the development of new emerging fields and irreversibilities. For the three communities (science, industry and government), a database of papers, patents and projects was constructed. Within this database statements were selected pertaining to nanosensor development. We focused on general nanosensor development, as well as on developments in relation to the application areas food, environmental analysis and medicine. Based on these statements a reconstruction of the developments in the field was made. Two dominant development paths were identified: path A related to electrochemical sensors and path B related to optical nanosensors. Furthermore, the developments in relation to the application areas are described. Based on these narratives the emerging irreversibilities were derived and analyzed. Our findings from this study can contribute to the development of nanosensor technologies as those wishing to coordinate the development can now look to the future in a more informed way. Importantly, we have developed new methods for tracing emerging irreversibilities, which can be seen as an addition to existing mapping tools of emerging technologies.