Coping with methods for delineating emerging fields: Nanoscience and nanotechnology as a case study

作者：

Highlights：

• We use, compare and discuss different approaches for delineating emerging fields taking nanoscience and nanotechnology as a case study.

• A conceptual framework for employing three distinct approaches is proposed.

• Comparison of the approaches —at subject category, journal and publication level— yield quite different results.

• Field delineation shows certain problems at the quantitative and qualitative level, especially for interdisciplinary fields.

摘要

•We use, compare and discuss different approaches for delineating emerging fields taking nanoscience and nanotechnology as a case study.•A conceptual framework for employing three distinct approaches is proposed.•Comparison of the approaches —at subject category, journal and publication level— yield quite different results.•Field delineation shows certain problems at the quantitative and qualitative level, especially for interdisciplinary fields.

论文关键词：Field delineation,Science classification,Research topics,Bibliometrics,Scientometrics

论文评审过程：Received 20 December 2018, Revised 12 August 2019, Accepted 5 September 2019, Available online 4 October 2019, Version of Record 4 October 2019.

论文官网地址：https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2019.100976