Title: Technologies watch exercise: foresight approach enhanced with scientific publications and patents analysis

Authors: Husam Arman, Allan Hodgson, Nabil Gindy

Addresses: School of Mechanical Materials and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK. ' Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK. ' School of Mechanical Materials and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

Abstract: This paper presents a process that has been used by the authors to identify key technological threats and opportunities facing the UK aerospace industry. A group of experts, all of them members of the UK|s National Advisory Committee for Aerospace Manufacturing (NACAM), selected six technology themes that were considered to be emerging/growing and would have an impact on aerospace manufacturing technologies. This study included benchmarking and foresight exercises. Based on the results of this study, a bibliometric approach has been used to examine the prioritisation of the selected technologies. The results indicate that most of the technologies ranked highly by the experts have proved to be emerging and of importance according publication and patents, with some exceptions. Overall, the consensus between the NACAM experts, patents and publications perspectives implies a high degree of confidence in the results.

Keywords: technology foresight; technology watch; emerging technologies; bibliometrics; NACAM; technological opportunities; technological threats; UK; United Kingdom; aerospace industry; benchmarking; patents; publications.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTIP.2009.026751

International Journal of Technology Intelligence and Planning, 2009 Vol.5 No.3, pp.305 - 321

Published online: 25 Jun 2009 *

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