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This work aims to detect the emergence of science and technology fields and to characterise science and technology trajectories. It proposes a new data mining approach, called 'DETECTS', for the identification of those research and innovative activities whose intensity increases sharply compared to previous levels and to other developments. This approach also allows monitoring the extent to which field and topic-specific activities further accelerate, stabilise or abate, and the time it takes for such dynamics to unfold. By applying the 'DETECTS' methodology on data from scientific publications and patents, this work sheds light on: the structure, articulation and relevance of the most important scientific and technological developments occurred during the period 1990-2011; the extent to which new fields arise from the cross-fertilisation of different technologies; the way in which advancements in science relate to technological progress; and the areas where future developments are likely to occur in the short and medium term. Results further suggest, somewhat unexpectedly, that in some focal technology fields considered, the acceleration in the development of science seems to closely follow the acceleration in the development of technologies, and not vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic institutions may register trademarks (TMs) to protect and exploit key intangible assets (e.g. reputation), to better market current and prospective initiatives, and to better appropriate the output of innovative activities. TM registration by academic institutions – so far overlooked by the literature addressing the third function of universities – is investigated here. The analysis relies on a novel panel data set containing information about US universities, their main characteristics, and their TM and patent activities over the period 1997–2007. Our contribution is exploratory in nature and descriptive in aim and uncovers a number of relationships worth being investigated further, among them are the persistence of Intellectual Property Rights activities by academic institutions and the existence of positive and significant relationships between TM registration and universities’ characteristics such as being private institutions, the number of students enrolled and the share of graduate students, the share of federal funds received, and the presence of medical schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]