In this paper, we study the influence of path dependencies on the development of an emerging technology in a transitional economy. Our focus is the development of nanotechnology in Russia in the period between 1990 and 2012. By examining outputs, publication paths and collaboration patterns, we identify a series of factors that help to explain Russia’s limited success in leveraging its ambitious national nanotechnology initiative. The analysis highlights four path-dependent tendencies of Russian nanotechnology research: publication pathways and the gatekeeping role of the Russian Academy of Sciences; increasing geographical and institutional centralisation of nanotechnology research; limited institutional diffusion; and patterns associated with the internationalisation of Russian research. We discuss policy implications related to path dependence, nanotechnology research in Russia and to the broader reform of the Russian science system.

This research article puts forward a method to identify the national heritage of authors based on the morphology of their surnames. Most studies in the field use variants of dictionary‐based surname methods to identify ethnic communities, an approach that suffers from methodological limitations. Using the public file of ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) identifiers in 2015, we developed a surname‐based identification method and applied it to infer Russian heritage from suffix‐based morphological regularities. The method was developed conceptually and tested in an undersampled control set. Identification based on surname morphology was then complemented by using first‐name data to eliminate false‐positive results. The method achieved 98% precision and 94% recall rates—superior to most other methods that use name data. The procedure can be adapted to identify the heritage of a variety of national groups with morphologically regular naming traditions. We elaborate on how the method can be employed to overcome long‐standing limitations of using name data in bibliometric datasets. This identification method can contribute to advancing research in scientific mobility and migration, patenting by certain groups, publishing and collaboration, transnational and scientific diaspora links, and the effects of diversity on the innovative performance of organizations, regions, and countries.

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This paper presents a framework to understand the impact of scientific knowledge on the policy-making process, focusing on the conceptual impact. We note the continuing dissatisfaction with the quality and effects of science-policy interactions in both theory and practice. We critique the current literature’s emphasis on the efforts of scientists to generate policy impact, because it neglects the role of ‘user’ policymaking organisations. The framework offered in the paper develops an argument about the essential role of institutional conditions of policy ‘users’ for scientific knowledge to achieve impact. The framework is informed by the reflexive institutionalist and the neo-institutionalist theoretical approaches. Its main contribution is in outlining the intra- and inter-organisational conditions of policymaking organisations, along with personal characteristics of individual policy officials that influence the likelihood of scientific knowledge to generate conceptual impact. We also offer an operationalisation of the framework. The wider relevance of the paper is in moving the focus from the activities of scientists and the incentive structure in scientific organisations to the policy user side.

This paper introduces the use of co-nomination as a method to map research fields by directly accessing their knowledge networks organised around exchange relationships of intellectual influence. Co-nomination is a reputation-based approach combining snowball sampling and social network analysis. It compliments established bibliometric mapping methods by addressing some of their typical shortcomings in specific instances. Here we test co-nomination by mapping one such instance: the idiosyncratic field of CERN-based heavy flavour physics (HFP). HFP is a 'hyper-authorship' field where papers conventionally list thousands of authors alphabetically, masking individual intellectual contributions. We also undertook an illustrative author co-citation analysis (ACA) mapping of 2,310 HFP articles published 2013-18 and identified using a simple keyword query. Both maps were presented to two HFP scientists for commentary upon structure and validity. Our results suggest co-nomination allows us to access individual-level intellectual influence and discern the experimental and theoretical HFP branches. Co-nomination is powerful in uncovering current and emerging research specialisms in HFP that might remain opaque to other methods. ACA, however, better captures HFP's historical and intellectual foundations. We conclude by discussing possible future uses of conomination in science policy and research evaluation arrangements. Article Highlights The paper presents co-nomination approach and explains how it can be used to map fields of science and communities that are hard to access through codified sources  CERN-based heavy flavour physics, a hyper-authorship field within particle physics, is used as the empirical case study  The paper maps heavy flavour physics using co-nomination and author co-citation, then deliberates about the merits of each approach

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