Innovation networks. New approaches in modelling and analyzing. (Q838344)

This book is an edited collection of ten articles that address aspects of the relationship between innovation and networks. Here the networks considered are complex networks modelling social, economic, biological, or physical behaviour, among others. The principal concern is with emergent properties, in particular with innovation, here ``understood as a critical event [that] destabilizes the current state of the system, and opens a new process of self-organization that leads to a new stable state''. The primary goal of the collection is to elucidate both the similarities and the differences among approaches from diverse disciplines to the analysis of complex networks, particularly innovation networks. The first chapter lays a foundation for the more detailed studies to follow, examining both the current state of the art and the cross-cutting motivation and need for research. Part I, consisting of Chapters 2-6, addresses innovation networks arising (primarily) from economics. Chapter 2 concerns the structure of knowledge networks, discussing the mechanisms by which network dynamics lead to non-random network structure. Chapter 3 addresses network structure in research collaboration, examining the diminished but still important role of geographical proximity, and addresses policy implications. Chapter 4 examines the emergence of regional information systems, adopting a bottom-up agent-based approach to account for network behaviour. Chapter 5 argues that industrial organization has attributed to technological spillover what should rightly be seen as emergent properties of networks of actors or agents, and develops a modeling framework to explore this. Chapter 6 examines how knowledge diffusion leading to innovation is supported and impeded by network structure, and argues that both the extent to which knowledge is generally available, and the extent to which it is traded rather than given, lead to different structural demands. Part II contains four chapters that concentrate more on research in complexity science, generally interpreted. Chapter 7 provides a primer on tools from statistical physics, providing not only the original motivation but a more general exposition of the manner in which the techniques can be applied to social and economic networks. Chapter 8 provides a detailed overview of modeling techniques for complex networks, giving a good overview of graph-theoretic and statistical approaches, and tying these to applications. Chapter 9 adapts the statistical physics approaches to study diffusion or propagation of innovations in a network. Chapter 10 describes self-organization in networks, in particular the introduction of innovations that change the observed system dynamics. Although studied in many different contexts, a unified examination of innovation networks has only been undertaken recently. Rather than focussing on the differences between studies from different disciplines, this collection makes a strong effort to bridge between disciplines, to identify ideas that have general application. In general, it succeeds in this effort. The book will be of much value not only to those interested in complex economic or social behaviour, but also to those interested in graph-theoretic, statistical, probabilistic, and algebraic structure of networks.