Long abstract

Statistics Publications & Documents Information by Country

Nanotechnology is commonly considered to offer considerable promise extending from business opportunities throughout various industries to broader socio-economic benefits, especially in the context of pressing global challenges such as those related to energy, health care, clean water and climate change. Governments around the world have invested heavily in R&D in this field and companies are also becoming increasingly engaged. Despite this promise, investments and company involvement in nanotechnology developments are still poorly monitored. The objective of this report is to provide a comprehensive overview of these developments through a systematic and critical analysis of available indicators and statistics, while acknowledging that there is a need for further work to both broaden the range of, and develop further, nanotechnology metrics.

Nanotechnology developments essentially stem from key enabling inventions in instrumentation during the 1980s and have, since then, developed rapidly in various technological and application fields. Nanotechnology is still at an early phase of development, its future being hard to forecast. Available forecasts suggest a global market for nanotechnology products in the range of USD 150-3100 billion in the coming years while some 2 million new jobs could be created. Nonetheless, these forecasts suffer from difficulties in defining the value-added of nanotechnology to existing manufacturing processes as well as its role for generating new products. It should be noted, however, that the financial/economic crisis unfolding since October 2008 has not yet been taken account of in these projections.

The global distribution of R&D investments, publications and patents indicate that nanotechnology-related research and development activities are concentrated in a few countries and regions of the world. The United States dominates in this context with regions in the San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles area, followed by Japan and some of the larger European Union countries (Germany, France, the United Kingdom). Nonetheless, some smaller countries also show up as being very active when considering size differences across countries. The rapid entry of “newcomer” countries such as Korea, India and especially China should also be highlighted; all of these countries are characterized by rapid growth rates in the number of publications and patents although from low starting levels. These results suggest that the thrust of nanotechnology R&D may partly be shifting away from traditional countries which have had a longer history of involvement in nanotechnology.

Publication data highlight the broad-based and inter-disciplinary nature of scientific advances that fuel nanotechnology developments. The number of publications exceeds, by far, patents, as is often the case for emerging technologies. Evidence based on the share of patent citations to the scientific literature also suggests that nanotechnology draws on sciences to a higher degree than other technology fields. Similar to early biotechnology developments, nanotechnology patenting accelerated some 12-13 years after key enabling inventions in instrumentation and related engineering techniques. A further analysis of differences and similarities between bio- and nanotechnologies (and other emerging technologies) could be insightful, especially in light of the cross-pollination and possible convergence between these fields.

Nanotechnology patenting is distributed across a broad range of sub-areas and application fields, pointing to the multiplicity of applications of this emerging technology and its general purpose nature. Most patenting occurs in nanoelectronics and nanomaterials, both of which are generic technology areas in their own right. Nanotechnology patenting shows the highest growth in the application fields of electronics, chemicals and instruments, while the growth in nanotechnology patenting is higher than the growth in overall patenting. Major multinational enterprises in the electronics industry account for the lion’s share of these patents although the share of patents owned by universities is relatively higher in nanotechnology compared with patents in general. It may be that incremental developments related to ‘traditional’ top-down approaches to nanoscale engineering explain the proliferation of applications in electronics and materials. More disruptive bottom-up approaches may still be confined to university laboratories. The concept “nanotechnology” is too general to capture sectoral specificities in developments and further analysis is needed.

Patent data can also be used to highlight the position and specialisation of countries across nanotechnology sub-areas and application fields. Overall, countries tend to either patent relatively more in the fields of electronics or in the field of chemicals, pharmaceuticals and biotechnologies, while most countries are active in nanomaterials. This finding may suggest an emerging division of labour in nanotechnology innovation, a finding that it would be interesting to analyse further as the technological viability and commercial potentials of different nanotechnology application fields become clearer. Overall, the United States and European Union are more diversified in terms of these application fields while Japan has a higher specialisation in electronics. Further, electronics appears to be an application field in which nanotechnology is building on existing strengths in most countries. Instruments, pharmaceuticals and biotechnologies represent areas in which nanotechnology is contributing to diversification in new fields.

R&D investment data on nanotechnology are incomplete due to the lack of commonly agreed definitions and statistical frameworks, while publication and patent data only can provide a limited picture of the variegated nature of technological change and innovation. This report also looked at company surveys that have been undertaken in a few countries (the United States, Canada, Germany, Finland and Australia) for complementary insights. It is difficult to define a nanotechnology company, and the number of such companies is still quite small. Those identified through the company surveys tend to be small and distributed across a broad range of industries, mainly in the manufacturing sector. A majority of these companies develop nanomaterials, nanobiotechnologies or nanoelectronics; this finding is roughly comparable with the distribution of patents by nanotechnology sub-areas and application fields. The surveys suggest that nanotechnology impacts the traditional business areas of companies while also creating new opportunities in new markets.

One common theme addressed by all of these company surveys is challenges in commercialising nanotechnology. High processing costs, problems in the scalability of R&D for prototype and industrial production, the basic research orientation of the related sciences, and concerns about environment, health and safety (EHS) issues (especially the public perception of these) emerge as the key challenges. All of these challenges would require further analysis and verification through qualitative company case studies. A key question is whether these challenges are unique to nanotechnology and hence may require new policy approaches. This report has highlighted some unique features in the development, application and commercialisation of nanotechnology. Better metrics, combined with qualitative case studies, would constitute a necessary basis for the further monitoring and benchmarking of nanotechnology in response to future policy needs.