Semantic Distances for Technology Landscape Visualization

Abstract

This paper presents a novel approach to the visualization and subsequent elucidation of research domains in science and technology. The proposed methodology is based on the use of bibliometrics; i.e., analysis is conducted using information regarding trends and patterns of publication rather than the contents of these publications. In particular, we explore the use of term co-occurence frequencies as an indicator of the semantic closeness between pairs of words or phrases. To demonstrate the utility of this approach, a case study on renewable energy technologies is conducted, where the above techniques are used to visualize the interrelationships within a collection of energy-related keywords. As these are regarded as manifestations of the underlying research topics, we contend that the proposed visualizations can be interpreted as representations of the underlying technology landscape. These techniques have many potential applications, but one interesting challenge in which we are particularly interested is the mapping and subsequent prediction of future developments in the technological fields being studied.