Philip Shapira

The University of Manchester · Manchester Institute of Innovation Research

A comprehensive review of the environmental consequences of political, social and economic restructuring in Bulgaria, based on extensive in-country studies by a multi-disciplinary team of US and Bulgarian researchers. Bulgaria in Transition discusses national developments as well as drawing on detailed field work in the Burgas region, on Bulgaria's...

Labeling data is essential for training text classifiers but is often difficult to accomplish accurately, especially for complex and abstract concepts. Seeking an improved method, this paper employs a novel approach using a generative language model (GPT-4) to produce labels and rationales for large-scale text analysis. We apply this approach to th...

This paper maps research outcomes and identifies spillover effects at a US University Research Center (URC) that offers user facilities for nanotechnology research. We use scientometric and network science approaches to analyze measures of topical orientation, productivity, impact, and collaboration applied to URC-related Web of Science abstract pu...

This paper examines how automation and digitalisation influence the way everyday scientific work practices are organised and conducted. Drawing on a practice-based study of the field of synthetic biology, the paper uses ethnographic, interview and survey data to offer a sociomaterial and relational perspective of technological change. As automation...

This paper investigates how small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) utilize networks to commercialize emerging technologies. We build on literature on SMEs and innovation, networks, and how innovation occurs within collaborative arrangements. Contrasting network types and their influences on commercialization outcomes are probed in the context of SME...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a technology at the center of many political, economic, and societal debates. This paper formulates a new AI patent search strategy and applies this to provide a landscape analysis of AI innovation dynamics and technology evolution. The paper uses patent analyses, network analyses, and source path link co...

From the early 2010s, policymakers and firms in advanced industrial economies began introducing approaches to systemically exploit manufacturing and industrial data using the notion of cyber-physical convergence. Three innovation concepts have been especially highlighted: Smart Manufacturing, the Industrial Internet and Industrie 4.0. In parallel,...

A firm’s connections into its ecosystem influences its ability to innovate. Much research on innovation ecosystems has examined high technology firms and locations and has used interview, survey, or science and technology data methods. Our study focuses on a resource-based ecosystem—agri-food in a medium-sized region—and explores a novel method usi...

Businesses are increasingly focussing their efforts on developing sustainable technological innovations. In doing so, they face obstacles in the systemic nature of innovation processes, the uncertain and ambiguous nature of sustainability, and in reconciling their business model and strategy with social and environmental value creation. This is par...

Assessing corporate engagement with an emerging technology is essential for understanding the development of research and innovation systems. Corporate publishing is used as a system-level knowledge transfer indicator, but prior literature suggests that publishing can run counter to private sector needs for management of dissemination to ensure app...

Artificial intelligence, as an emerging and multidisciplinary domain of research and innovation, has attracted growing attention in recent years. Delineating the domain composition of artificial intelligence is central to profiling and tracking its development and trajectories. This paper puts forward a bibliometric definition for artificial intell...

An examination is presented of scientific research publication trends during the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020. After reviewing the timing of the emergence of the pandemic in 2020 and the growth of governmental responses, available secondary and sources are used to highlight impacts of COVID-19 on scientific research. A bibliometri...

Entrepreneurial scholarship suggests that a small firm's ability to grow is a function of its capacity to sense and respond to changes in the market as well as the broader environment for the firm's goods and services. Developing detailed measures of internal capabilities at a large scale, however, is often hampered by limitations in the availabili...

The publication of our article “Introducing the dilemma of societal alignment for inclusive and responsible research and innovation” (Ribeiro et al., 2018) was accompanied by three commentaries (Guston, 2018; Nordmann, 2018; and Kuzma and Roberts, 2018). In the original article, we invoked Collingridge’s dilemma of the social control of technology...

Horizon scanning is intended to identify the opportunities and threats associated with technological, regulatory and social change. In 2017 some of the present authors conducted a horizon scan for bioengineering (Wintle et al., 2017). Here we report the results of a new horizon scan that is based on inputs from a larger and more international group...

Horizon scanning is intended to identify the opportunities and threats associated with technological, regulatory and social change. In 2017 some of the present authors conducted a horizon scan for bioengineering (Wintle et al., 2017). Here we report the results of a new horizon scan that is based on inputs from a larger and more international group...

Horizon scanning is intended to identify the opportunities and threats associated with technological, regulatory and social change. In 2017 some of the present authors conducted a horizon scan for bioengineering (Wintle et al., 2017). Here we report the results of a new horizon scan that is based on inputs from a larger and more international group...

Bio-based production of industrial chemicals using synthetic biology can provide alternative green routes from renewable resources, allowing for cleaner production processes. To efficiently produce chemicals on-demand through microbial strain engineering, biomanufacturing foundries have developed automated pipelines that are largely compound agnost...

Emerging science and technology fields are increasingly expected to provide solutions to societal grand challenges. The promise of such solutions frequently underwrites claims for the public funding of research. In parallel, universities, public research organizations and, in particular, private enterprises draw on such research to actively secure...

This chapter examines similarities and differences between scientists’ and nonscientists’ views of synthetic biology and the factors that shape them, as well as limitations of available research and the need for more focus on the views of both groups. We combine data from a survey of researchers in synthetic biology and a nationally representative...

Tackling the pressing sustainability needs of society will require the development and application of new technologies. Biotechnology, emboldened by recent advances in synthetic biology, offers to generate sustainable biologically-based routes to chemicals and materials as alternatives to fossil-derived incumbents. Yet, the sustainability potential...

Previous research has explored the impact of political ties on corporate innovation performance, yet with controversial results. This study proposes that political ties has a curvilinear impact on innovation performance, and the resulting curvilinear relationship is moderated by absorptive capacity and external environment. We conduct examination b...

Identifying nanoscience and nanotechnology (nano) publications in global databases is essential to profile and track research in this ever-changing field. Crafting an effective search query to retrieve as many nano-related publications as feasible, while excluding irrelevant publications, is challenging. This paper reports on a major update to a we...

Identifying nanoscience and nanotechnology-related (nano) publications in global databases is essential to profile and track research in the ever-changing field. Crafting an effective search query to retrieve as many nano-related publications as feasible, while moderating irrelevant publications, is challenging. This paper reports on a major update...

Research universities are expanding their institutional research presence overseas through the creation of research centers, facilities and partnerships outside of their home countries. We argue that such international university research ventures (IURV) are a distinct type of intermediary node in global knowledge networks occurring at the intersec...

Digitalization and the growth of big data promise greater customization as well as change in how manufacturing is distributed. Yet, challenges arise in applying these new approaches in consumer goods industries that often emphasize mass production and extended supply chains. We build a conceptual framework to explore whether big data combined with...

Emerging technologies are increasingly promoted on the promise of tackling the grand challenge of sustainability. A range of assessment and governance approaches seek to evaluate these claims, but these tend to be applied disparately and lack widespread operationalisation. They also face specific challenges, such as high levels of uncertainty, when...

This research article puts forward a method to identify the national heritage of authors based on the morphology of their surnames. Most studies in the field use variants of dictionary‐based surname methods to identify ethnic communities, an approach that suffers from methodological limitations. Using the public file of ORCID (Open Researcher and C...

A profile of synthetic biology research and innovation is presented using data on publications and patents worldwide and for the UK and selected benchmark countries. The search approach used to identify synthetic biology publications identifies a core set of synthetic biology papers, extracts and refines keywords from these core records, searches f...

A profile of synthetic biology research and innovation is presented using data on publications and patents worldwide and for the UK and selected benchmark countries. The search approach used to identify synthetic biology publications identifies a core set of synthetic biology papers, extracts and refines keywords from these core records, searches f...

This paper advances an anticipatory governance framework to investigate and prepare for the potential implications of an emerging technology. Within the growing domain of synthetic biology, we draw on an end-to-end assessment of biosynthetic menthol that incorporates consideration of multiple dimensions of production and use. Based on documentary a...

Encouraging innovation in manufacturing is of much interest in business and policy circles. One aspect of this emphasis on innovation is the assumption that innovation leads to tangible business outcomes that can sustain the competitiveness of industries and create jobs. This study examines the relationship between product and process innovation an...

In this discussion paper, we outline and reflect on some of the key challenges that influence the development and uptake of more inclusive and responsible forms of research and innovation. Taking these challenges together, we invoke Collingridge’s famous dilemma of social control of technology to introduce a complementary dilemma that of ‘societal...

The synthetic biology research community will influence the future development of synthetic biology and its emergence into the sociopolitical and regulatory arenas. Because of this influence, we provide a first look at those involved in the research field—their views regarding the field and interactions with the public—using a unique sample of Unit...

This short briefing paper provides an overview of what is responsible research and innovation (RRI), with concise highlights about principles of responsibility, the emergence of RRI in the UK and Europe, the EPSRC AREA framework, and RRI in Manchester.

This paper looks at the creation of a network of researchers of social issues in nanotechnology and the role of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University (CNS-ASU) in the creation of this network. The extent to which CNS-ASU is associated with the development of a research network around the study of social issues in nano...

The ability to accurately identify scholarly authors is central to bibliometric analysis. Efforts to disambiguate author names using algorithms or national or societal registries become less effective with increases in the number of publications from China and other nations where shared and similar names are prevalent. This work analyzes the adopti...

Manufacturing digitalisation and the growth of big data promises to foster more responsive supply chains and to close gaps between manufacturers and consumers, leading to highly-connected manufacturing operations, mass customisation and more sustainable production. There is widespread recognition that manufacturing in broad terms is entering a new...

This study examines the effects of receipt of business assistance services from the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) on manufacturing establishment performance. The results generally indicate that MEP services have had positive and significant impacts on establishment productivity and sales per worker for the 2002 to 2007 period with some...

This paper examines how the concept of public values can be operationalized in an ongoing public initiative to stimulate innovation in an emerging technology. Our study focuses on Innovation Corps (I-Corps)—a program initiated in 2011 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to accelerate the process of commercializing science-driven discoveries. T...

Advances in biological engineering are likely to have substantial impacts on global society. To explore these potential impacts we ran a horizon scanning exercise to capture a range of perspectives on the opportunities and risks presented by biological engineering. We first identified 70 potential issues, and then used an iterative process to prior...

Advances in biological engineering are likely to have substantial impacts on global society. To explore these potential impacts we ran a horizon scanning exercise to capture a range of perspectives on the opportunities and risks presented by biological engineering. We first identified 70 potential issues, and then used an iterative process to prior...

Digitalisation and the growth of big data promise greater customisation as well as change in how manufacturing is distributed. Yet, challenges arise in applying these new approaches in consumer goods industries that often emphasise mass production and extended supply chains. We build a conceptual framework to explore whether big data combined with...

International research collaborations are widespread, but few have studied those that reach the scale and scope of what we call international university research ventures (IURVs). In an IURV, a university sets up a formal and organizationally consolidated research relationship in a foreign country. This paper puts forward an institutionalization fr...

Synthetic biology is an emerging domain that combines biological and engineering concepts and which has seen rapid growth in research, innovation, and policy interest in recent years. This paper contributes to efforts to delineate this emerging domain by presenting a newly constructed bibliometric definition of synthetic biology. Our approach is di...

Manufacturing digitalisation and the growth of big data promises to foster more responsive supply chains and to close gaps between manufacturers and consumers, leading to highly-connected manufacturing operations, mass customisation and more sustainable production. There is widespread recognition that manufacturing in broad terms is entering a new...

This paper investigates interactions between institutional adaptation and the transformation of science and innovation systems by analysing change and adjustment in post-socialist science academies. Two leading examples are examined: the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). A heuristic framework of institutio...

Tang, L., Youtie, J., and Shapira, P. “Is there a clubbing effect underlying Chinese research citation increases?” Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2015, 66, 9, 1923-1932. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/asi.23302 [Open Access]. Reprinted in Chinese and published in the China Academic Journal of Finance and Economics, 42...

Delineating the emergence of nanotechnologies that offer new functionalities is an important element in an anticipatory approach to the governance of nanotechnology and its potential impacts. This paper examines the transition to next generation active nanotechnologies which incorporate functions that respond to the environment or systems concepts...

This paper explores enterprise development and commercialization in the field of graphene. Firm characteristics and relationships, value chain positioning, and factors associated with product entry are examined for a set of 65 graphene-oriented small and medium-sized enterprises located in 16 different countries. As well as secondary sources and bi...

The UK Synthetic Biology Research Centre, SYNBIOCHEM, hosted by the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Manchester is delivering innovative technology platforms to facilitate the predictable engineering of microbial bio-factories for fine and speciality chemicals production. We provide an overview of our foundry activities th...

Fig. S1. Number of different pathways per patent document. Fig. S2. Number of different target compounds per patent document. Fig. S3. Number of alternative pathways per compound. Fig. S4. Number of patents by application year. Data S1. Experimental procedures.

Innovation underpins competitiveness, is crucial to addressing societal challenges, and its support has become a major public policy goal. But what really works in innovation policy, and why? This Handbook, compiled by leading experts in the field, is the first comprehensive guide to understanding the logic and effects of innovation polices. The Ha...

A goal of synthetic biology bio-foundries is to innovate through an iterative design/build/test/learn pipeline. In assessing the value of new chemical production routes, the intellectual property (IP) novelty of the pathway is important. Exploratory studies can be carried using knowledge of the patent/IP landscape for synthetic biology and metaboli...

The Manchester Synthetic Biology Research Centre (SYNBIOCHEM) is a foundry for the biosynthesis and sustainable production of fine and speciality chemicals. The Centre's integrated technology platforms provide a unique capability to facilitate predictable engineering of microbial bio-factories for chemicals production. An overview of these capabili...