sustainability science Lus M. A. Bettencourt Santa Fe Institute - - PDF document

Mapping the evolution and structure of

sustainability science

Luís M. A. Bettencourt Santa Fe Institute & Los Alamos National Laboratory AAAS, Washington DC, December 1st 2010

in collaboration with Jasleen Kaur and Katy Börner

Large Scale bibliometric data collection and analysis

• Collection of Sustainability Science articles from ISI Web
• f Science
• Collection of 36,984 authors, 20,646 papers, in 174

countries and 2,206 cities.

• Spans the period 1974-2010
• Analysis:

Topic analysis Temporal evolution Collaboration network structure and evolution Geographic focus and worldwide connectivity Disciplinary analysis (maps of science) - Katy

first impressions

titles & keywords

word frequency from publication titles

ISI keywords

temporal evolution

from policy to scientific field

Ideas as ‘epidemics of knowledge’ Population models of scientific fields

competing ideas

susceptibles exposed infectious recovered

describe the dynamics of growth of the field

Bettencourt, Kaiser, Kaur 2008, 2009

population model

idea contagion and field growth

exponential growth

Bettencourt, Kaiser, Kaur 2008, 2009

authors ~ exp t/t0

t0=12 years

critical periods and growth

increased contact rate 1989-2000

• ur common future

UN brundtland report

PNAS sustainability science

World Conservation Strategy Agenda 21 Rio “Earth Summit”

NAS Our common journey

field unifies

collaboration network evolution

evolution of the field’s social structure

The network structure of scientific revolutions

Kuhn 1961

“normal science” “paradigm shift” discovery invention crisis “exceptional science”

time

transition to a larger & denser graph giant component emerges graph fragmentation

densification of network

number of collaborations increase superlinearly with authors

edges = e0 (authors)b

b=1.23 [1.20,1.25]

For every fractional increase in numbers of authors, collaboration increases by 23% per capita network densifies

percolation as field formation

a giant component of collaboration signals field formation

collaboration cluster variance

fractional size of largest cluster

field formation ~2000

Bettencourt, Kaiser, Kaur, 2009 topological transitions and field formation

regional distribution

nations, cities and international networks

• 1. us 9435
• 2. england 2993
• 3. australia 2503
• 4. canada 2084
• 4. germany 1370
• 6. netherlands 1193
• 7. france 1038
• 8. peoples r china 988
• 9. brazil 832
• 10. spain 825
• 11. italy 762
• 12. india 699
• 13. sweden 644
• 14. japan 575
• 15. switzerland 563
• 16. scotland 490
• 17. south africa 475
• 18. new zealand 474
• 19. belgium 319
• 20. turkey 302
• 1. us 87741
• 2. england 19327
• 3. australia 14949
• 4. canada 13911
• 5. netherlands 7601
• 6. germany 6634
• 7. france 6190
• 8. sweden 5299
• 9. peoples r china 3949
• 10. italy 3833
• 11. switzerland 3446
• 12. new zealand 3263
• 13. india 3038
• 14. scotland 2771
• 15. spain 2629
• 16. brazil 2596
• 17. south africa 2585

18, japan 2171

• 19. kenya 2110
• 20. austria 2096
• 1. dutch antilles 44.0
• 2. gambia 29.2
• 3. zaire 21.0
• 4. nepal 18.4
• 5. iceland 14.4
• 6. mauritius 14.3
• 7. congo 13.8
• 8. philippines 13.3
• 9. honduras 11.7
• 10. chile 11.3
• 11. kenya 10.2
• 12. martinique 10.0
• 13. uganda 9.7
• 14. cote d’ivoire 9.7
• 15. us 9.3
• 16. ecuador 9.2
• 17. zambia 8.6
• 18. bolivia 8.6
• 19. solomon islands 8.5
• 20. seychelles 8.5

rank nation papers rank nation citations rank nation cit/paper

National Rankings in Sustainability Science

developing nations show quality

world city rankings

• 1. washington dc 3943
• 2. london england 3938
• 3. boston ma 2644
• 4. stockholm sweden 2599
• 5. wageningen netherlands 2561
• 6. seattle wa 2449
• 7. madison wi 2098
• 8. san francisco ca 2014
• 9. ft collins co 2006
• 10. stanford ca 1990
• 11. new york ny 1982
• 12. corvallis or 1882
• 13. nairobi kenya 1726
• 14. gainesville fl 1644
• 15. minneapolis-st paul mn 1592
• 16. ithaca ny 1315
• 17. oxford england 1248
• 18. davis ca 1243
• 19. columbus,oh 1189
• 20. beijing peoples r china 1151
• 21. bloomington in 1146
• 22. atlanta ga 1059
• 1. washington dc 672
• 2. london england 612
• 3. melbourne australia 395
• 4. nijmegen netherlands 390
• 5. boston ma 364
• 6. paris france 345
• 7. vancouver bc canada 322
• 8. brisbane australia 321
• 9. beijing peoples r china 317
• 10. new york ny 290
• 11. sidney australia 284
• 12. camberra australia 275
• 13. toronto on canada 257
• 14. zurich switzerland 249
• 15. perth australia 234
• 16. seattle wa 229
• 17. rotterdam netherlands 206
• 18. chapel hill-durham-raleigh nc 206
• 19. vienna austria 205
• 20. stockholm sweden 190
• 21. lancaster england 184
• 22. montpellier france 183

rank city papers rank city citations

city distribution

western hemisphere

city distribution

eastern hemisphere

place networks

how collaborations span the globe

place networks

how collaborations span the globe

summary

• Sustainability Science is a field of science, engineering and

policy growing explosively worldwide (doubling ~ 8-9 years)

• it is now (since 2000) formed as a field in that most authors

are connected via collaboration

• it has a wide geographical distribution with a strong presence

in both developed and developing nations

• capitals play major roles; the field is developed in western

europe (UK, Netherlands, Scandinavia, Switzerland), and

• Australia. Developing nations produce quality publications.
• the connectivity of several developing nations (India, Brazil,

China) remains incipient, and is primarily mediated by its largest research centers (New Delhi, São Paulo, Beijing)

Also: Worldwide patent database in energy technologies Urban scale and carbon footprint of US metropolitan areas