Science governance and funding seek to promote excellent science output by allocating resources to those projects, researchers and institutions from which outstanding results are expected. But the commonly used measures for scientific quality, such as the number of citations, do not take into account the potential of scientific results for technology transfer and commercialization.
The findings of the new study “Science Quality and the Value of Inventions” by Poege et al. imply that what is considered excellent within the science sector also leads to outstanding outcomes in the technological and commercial realm. Excellent scientific articles are referenced in substantially more patent documents than articles with lower scientific quality. Patents with references to often-cited scientific contributions are of much higher commercial value than patents referring to less-cited publications.
The analysis comprises references to scientific contributions from 4.8 million patent families of the European Patent Office and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and approximately 43 million scientific publications in the Web of Science from the year 1980 onwards.
Previously known was the fact that patents with references to scientific publications are substantially more valuable than patents without a direct science link. The new study contributes the insight that the quality of the scientific bases is of crucial importance. Patents with references to excellent scientific publications are particularly valuable, while this does not apply to patents with references to low quality scientific publications.
The results indicate that quality measures commonly used in science can serve as good criteria for a system of science funding which simultaneously provides a basis for societal benefit and technological progress.
Science Advances is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary open access journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and complements the journal Science, referred to as Science Magazine, which has been published since 1880.
To the publication in Science Advances
The authors: Felix Poege Dietmar Harhoff Fabian Gaessler Stefano H. Baruffaldi
Suggested citation:
Poege, Felix; Harhoff, Dietmar; Gaessler, Fabian; Baruffaldi, Stefano (2019). Science Quality and the Value of Inventions, Science Advances, 5 (12), eaay7323 (11 December 2019). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aay7323