This volume intends to give an insight into progress in the field of studies on modern science and technology. Researchers from Sweden, Japan and Germany began a "three country comparative study" in 1984. One of the primary aims of this study group was to better take account of the increasing importance of Japan in both analytical work and technology policy. To this end, researchers from the Research Policy Institute (RPI) at the University of Lund, the Graduate School of Policy Science at Saitama University in Urawa, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research in Karlsruhe met almost every year with policy makers from the three countries, in order to see how well the scientific debate is reflected in the interests of practitioneers in the related policies. The cooperation with the Swedish Board for Technical Development (STU)!, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (Monbusho), and the German Federal Ministry for Research and Technology (BMFT) brought about numerous "grey" papers, publications and two volumes of seminar proceedings. The first book2 deals with the problems of measuring technological change and summarizes tentative research plans from our first meetings. I concluded then, in November 1986, that "quantitative results are to be checked in a qualitative discursive process with the involved people. ( . . . ) The interaction of various indicators raises the pressure of argument and credibility. Case studies in dynamic fields of technology ideally supplement quantitative approaches.

This volume deals with the dynamics of science-based innovation. The transfer of the latest scientific results to commercial innovation is of ever more importance today. This implies that competitiveness in modern technologies is no more the responsibility of the manufacturing industry alone, but involves a mutual dependence with the largely publicfinanced science institutions. The volume displays the state of the art in this interesting emerging research field between (economic) innovation research and the sociology of science. It is organized in three main parts. Advanced methodologies (patent analysis, bibliometrics, cluster analysis and cognitive cartography) are introduced in part I, whereas part II presents selected trends in the national structures of science and innovation. Here, two quite differing countries are highlighted: Japan and the former German Democratic Republic. Part III includes technology casestudies of science-based innovation in molecular beam epitaxy, laser medicine, polyimide plastics, fuel cells and factory automation. The eleven authors from various European countries and Japan arrive at conclusions and recommendations both for (public) science and innovation policy and industrial technology management.

The interrelations of science and technology as an object of study seem to have drawn the attention of a number of disciplines: the history of both science and technology, sociology, economics and economic history, and even the philosophy of science. The question that comes to mind is whether the phenomenon itself is new or if advances in the disciplines involved account for this novel interest, or, in fact, if both are intercon nected. When the editors set out to plan this volume, their more or less explicit conviction was that the relationship of science and technology did reveal a new configuration and that the disciplines concerned with 1tS analysis failed at least in part to deal with the change because of conceptual and methodological preconceptions. To say this does not imply a verdict on the insufficiency of one and the superiority of any other one disciplinary approach. Rather, the situation is much more complex. In economics, for example, the interest in the relationship between science and technology is deeply influenced by the theoretical problem of accounting for the factors of economic growth. The primary concern is with technology and the problem is whether the market induces technological advances or whether they induce new demands that explain the subsequent diffusion of new technologies. Science is generally considered to be an exogenous factor not directly subject to market forces and, therefore, appears to be of no interest.

Best known as the leading historian of French railways, François Caron has also done significant work on topics as varied as electricity, water and steam power, the theory of innovation, the structure of enterprise, and other aspects of economic development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In this volume, he brings together these different facets of his expertise in order to present a broad panorama of modern technology. Caron shows how artisanal know-how was adapted, expanded, and formalized during the three industrial revolutions that swept over Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United States in a comprehensive analysis of this long, complex, and continuous historical process, leading up to the twenty-first century. Thus, he illustrates the increasingly fruitful interaction between technological and scientific knowledge in modern times.

This book is a collection of works regarding the interactions of science, technology, and society.

While science and technology research, sources of funding, performance, incentives, and motivations for technology innovation activities are reasonably well understood by academics and policy makers, the complex process by which scientific results are exploited and transformed into new technologies through an innovation process is poorly documented and studied little. Technology Dynamics is dedicated to the complex activity of technology innovation, with the aim of describing how innovative ideas are generated and their transformation into new technologies. It is based on the idea that technology evolves continuously with time, is changed by innovations, and is characterized by a dynamic that is constituted by technological processes occurring in organizational structures, as well as during the use of technologies. The five chapters Discuss technological processes for innovation; Describe innovation within organizational structures; Offer information on interfacing of science and economic factors with technology; Suggest new statistical studies for innovation and new approaches for innovation policies; and Examine the contribution of technology dynamics to statistical studies and promotion of technology innovation. This book is aimed at managers developing strategies for technology innovation, researchers interested in exploiting scientific results for innovative ideas and new technologies, scholars and students studying the economics of innovation. The book would also of interest to private or public financiers of innovation and policy makers involved in economic growth strategy.