Disruptive Innovation and Political Science: Europe’s Stagnation
Keywords:
disruptive innovations, disruptive research, science metrics.Abstract
Disruptive innovations are a crucial component of the economies of developed countries, originating from scientific breakthroughs produced by highly competitive research at the forefront of knowledge. In its first part, this article describes how to measure this competitive research, which is the first step toward developing scientific policies that lead to disruptive scientific breakthroughs. The second part explains the mistakes the European Commission has made over 30 years, misjudging the EU's contribution to advancing the frontier of knowledge, confusing and conflating it with incremental developments. At the disruptive level, the EU competes poorly with the US and China, and measurement errors are impeding the development of a European science policy that would correct the gap, especially in the currently most important technologies. Taking Spain as a model, the excessive concentration of European science on incremental developments can be explained by a scientific policy that leads researchers to avoid the risk of publishing little. When research is aimed at advancing the frontiers of knowledge, the risk is higher, especially in the aforementioned key technologies, where competition is very intense.
Downloads
References
Adler, R., Ewing, J., & Taylor, P., “Citation statistics. A report from the International Mathematical Union IMU in cooperation with the International Council of Industrial and Applied Mathematics ICIAM and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics IMS”, Statistical Science, 24, 2009, 1-14.
Albarrán, P., Crespo, J. A., Ortuño, I., & Ruiz-Castillo, J., “A comparison of the scientific performance of the U. S. and the European Union at the turn of the 21 century”, Scientometrics, 85, 2010, 329-344.
Archambault, E., & Larivière, V., “History of the journal impact factor: Contingencies and consequences”, Scientometrics, 79, 2009, 635-649.
Argyropoulou, M., Soderquist, K. E., & Iannou, G., “Getting out of the European Paradox trap: Making European research agile and challenge driven”, European Management Journal, 37, 2019, 1-5.
Bornmann, L., & Marx, W., “How good is research really. Measuring the citation impact of publications with percentiles increases correct assessments and fair comparisons”, EMBO Reports, 14, 2013, 226-230.
Bornmann, L., Mutz, R., & Daniel, H.-D., “Are there better indices for evaluation purposes than the h index? A comparison of nine variants of the h index using data from biomedicine”, Journal of the American Society for information Science and Technology, 59, 2008, 830-837.
Bornmann, L., Ye, A., & Ye, F., “Identifying landmark publications in the long run using field-normalized citation data”, Journal of Documentation, 74, 2018, 278-288.
Brito, R., & Rodríguez-Navarro, A., “Evaluating research and researchers by the journal impact factor: Is it better than coin flipping? ”, Journal of Informetrics, 13, 2019, 314-324.
Brito, R., & Rodríguez-Navarro, A., “The incosistency of h-index: A mathematical analysis”, Journal of Informetrics, 15, 2021, article 101106.
Comisión Nacional Evaluadora de la Actividad Investigadora, Resolución de 26 de noviembre de 2014, Boletín Oficial del Estado Español 290, 98204
Dedrick, J. & Kraemer, K. L., “Who captures value from science-based innovations? The distribution of benefits from GMR in the hard disk drive industry”, Research Policy, 44, 2015, 1615-1628.
Delgado-López-Cózar, E. & Martín-Martín A., “El factor de impacto de las revistas científicas sigue siendo ese número que devora la ciencia española ¿hasta cuándo?”, Anuario ThinkEPI, 13, 2019, e13e09.
Draghi, M., The Future of European Competitiveness. Part A: A competitiveness strategy for Europe. 2024, https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/97e481fd-2dc3-412d-be4c-f152a8232961_en
European Commission, Green Paper on Innovation, 1995, http://europa.eu/documents/comm/green_papers/pdf/com95_688_en.pdf
European Commission, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the European Council, The Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. A renewed European Agenda for Research and Innovation - Europe's chance to shape its future, 2018, COM(2018) 306 final.
European Commission, LAB - FAB - APP. Investing in the European future we want. Report of the independent High Level Group on maximising the impact of EU Research & Innovation Programmes, Publication Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2017.
European Commission, Align, Act, Accelerate. Research, Technology and Innovation to boost European Competitiveness, Publication Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2024.
European Commission, Science, Reserach and Innovation Performance of the EU. A competitive Europe for a sustainable future, Publication Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2024.
Frietsch, R., Gruber, S., & Bornmann, L., “The definition of highly cited researchers: the effect of different approaches on the empirical outcome”, Scientometrics, 130, 2025, 881-907.
Gaida, J., Wong-Leung, J., Robin, S., & Cave, D., “ASPI's Critical Technology Tracker. The global race for future power”, The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Barton, 2023.
Gobierno de España, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación 2021. Celebramos la ciencia. Semana de la Ciencia y la Innovación, Noviembre de 2021.
Godin, B., “The emergence of S&T indicators: why did governments supplement statistics with indicators?”, Research Policy, 32, 2003, 679-691.
Godin, B., “The new economy: what the concept owes to the OECD”, Research Policy, 33, 2004, 679-690.
Henderson, R. M., & Clark, K. B., “Arquitectural Innovation: The reconfiguration of existing products technologies and the failure of established firms”, Administrative Science Quarterly, 35,1990, 9-30.
Ioannidis, J. P. A., Boyack, K. W., Small, H., Sorensen, A. A., & Klavans, R., “Is your most cited work your best?”, Nature, 514, 2014, 561-562.
Jefatura del Estado Español. “Ley 17/2022, de 5 de septiembre, por la que se modifica la Ley 14/2011, de 1 de junio, de la Ciencia, la Tecnología y la Innovación”, Boletín Oficial del Estado Español 274, 2022, p. 33051
Jiménez-Contreras, E., de-Moya-Anegón, F., & Delgado-López-Cozar, E., “The evolution of reserach activity in Spain. The impact of the National Commission for the Evaluation of Research CNEAI ”, Research Policy, 32, 2003, 123-142.
Kovacs, A., Marullo C., Verhoeven, D., & Looy, B., “Radical, disruptive, discontinuous and breakthrough innovation: more or the same?”, Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings, 2019, 1545-1550.
Kuhn, T., The structure of scientific revolutions, 1970, University of Chicago Press.
Lander, E. S., The heroes of CRISPR”, Cell, 164, 2016, 18-28.
Letta, E. 2024. Much More than a Market. Speed, Security, Solidarity. Empowering the
Single Market to deliver a sustainable future and prosperity for all EU Citizens Council of the European Union. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/ny3j24sm/much‐more‐than‐a‐market‐report‐by‐enrico‐letta.pdf.
Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Orden de 2 de diciembre de 1994 Boletín Oficial del Estado Español 289, 1994, p. 37028
Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Resolución de 26 de octubre de 1995, Boletín Oficial del Estado Español 274, 1995, p. 33051
Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Real Decreto 1312, de 5 de octubre de 2007, Boletín Oficial del Estado Español 240, 1995, p. 40653.
Nagar, J. P., Breschi, S., & Fosfuri, A., “ERC science and invention: Does ERC break free from the EU Paradox?”, Research Policy, 53, 2024, 105038.
Olechnicka, A., Ploszaj, A.,& Celinska-Janpwicz, D., The Geography of Scientific Collaboration, Routledge, Oxford and New York, 2019.
Osuna, C., Cruz-Castro, L., & Sanz-Menéndez, L., “Overturning some assumptions about the effecs of evaluation systems on publication performance”, Scientometrics, 86, 2011, 575-592.
Padhi, A. K., Nanjundaswamy, K. S., & Goodenough, J. B., “Phospho-olivines as positive-electrode materials for rechargeable lithium batteries”, Journal of the Eletrochemical Society, 144, 1997, 1188-1194.
Poege, F., Harhoff, D., Gaessler, F., & Baruffaldi, S., “Science quality and the value of inventions”, Science Advances, 5, 2019, eaay7323.
Rodríguez Navarro, A., Cómo medir el éxito científico. Los errores de España. Aula Magna, Sevilla 2022.
Rodríguez Navarro, A. en el blog Nada es Gratis, 2024, https://nadaesgratis.es/admin/a-vueltas-de-nuevo-con-la-id
Rodríguez-Navarro, A., “Sound research, unimportant discoveries: Research, universities, and formal evaluation of research in Spain”, Journal of the American Society for information Science and Technology, 60, 2009, 1845-1858.
Rodríguez-Navarro, A., “Measuring research excellence. Number of Nobel Prize achievements versus conventional bibliometric indicators”, Journal of Documentation, 67, 2011, 582-600.
Rodríguez-Navarro, A., “Uncertain research country rankings. Should we continue producing uncertain rankings?”, Journal of Data and Information Science (en prensa), 2025, manuscrito disponible en https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2312.17560.
Rodríguez-Navarro, A., “Citation distributions and research evaluations: The impossibility of formulating a universal indicator”, Journal of Data and Information Science, 9, 2024, 1-25.
Rodríguez-Navarro, A., “Countries pushing the boundaries of knowledge: the USA's dominance, China's rise, and the EU's stagnation”. Quality & Quantity, publicación previa 2025, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-024-02044-z.
Rodríguez-Navarro, A., & Brito, R., “Double rank analysis for research assessment”, Journal of Informetrics, 12, 2018, 31-41.
Rodríguez-Navarro, A., & Brito, R., “Like-for-like bibliometric substitutes for peer review: advantages and limits of indicators calculated from the ep index”, Research Evaluation, 29, 2020, 215-230.
Rodríguez-Navarro, A., & Brito, R., “Might Europe one day again be a global scientific powerhouse? Analysis of ERC publications suggests it will not be possible without changes in research policy”, Quantitative Science Studies, 1, 2020, 872-893
Rodríguez-Navarro, A., & Brito, R., “Research assessment based on the number of top researchers”, Journal of Scientometric Research, 11, 2022, 286-294.
Rodríguez-Navarro, A. & Narin, F., “European paradox or delusion-Are European science and economy outdated?”, Science and Public Policy, 45, 2018, 14-23.
Roldan-Valdez, E., Salazar-Ruiz, S.Y., Ibarra-Contreras, R., & Rios, C., “Current concept on bibliometrics: a brief review about impact factor, Eigenfactor score, CiteScore, SCImago Jornal Rank, Source-Normalized Impact per paper, H-index, and alternative metrics”, Irish Journal of Medical Science, 188, 2019, 939-951.
Secretaría de Estado de Universidades e Investigación Resolución de 17 de noviembre de 2006, Boletín Oficial del Estado Español 285, 2006, p. 42051.
Seglen, P. O. 1997. “Why the impact factor of journals should not be used for evaluating research”, BMJ, 314, 1997, 498-502.
Thelwall, M., Kousha, K., Stuart, E., Makita, M., Abdoli, M., Wilson, P., & Levittj, J., “In which fields are citations indicators of reserach quality?”, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 74, 2023, 941-953.
van Noorden, R., “A produsion of measures”, Nature, 465, 2010, 864-866.
van den Besselaar, P., Heyman, u., & Sandstrom, U., “Perverse effects of output-based research funding? Butler's Australian case revisited”, Journal of Informetrics, 11, 2017, 905-918.
van Raan, A. F. J., “Sleeping beaties in science”, Scientometrics, 59, 2004, 467-472.
Vela, C., “Turn Spanish's budget crisis into an opportunity”, Nature, 486, 2012, 7.
Wang, J., Veugelers, R., & Stephan, P., “Bias against novelty in science: A cautionary tale for users of bibliometric indicators”, Research Policy, 46, 2017, 1416-1436
