Application of statistical physics methods and concepts to the study of science & technology systems

We apply methods and concepts of statistical physics to the study of scienc e & technology (S&T) systems. Specifically, our research is motivated by tw o concepts of fundamental importance in modern statistical physics: scaling and universality. We try to identify robust, universal, characteristics of the evolution of S&T systems that can provide guidance to forecasting the impact of changes in funding. We quantify the production of research in a n ovel fashion inspired by our previous study of the growth dynamics of busin ess firms. We study the production of research from the point of view both of inputs (R&D funding) and of outputs (publications and patents) and find the existence of scaling laws describing the growth of these quantities. We also analyze R&D systems of different countries to test the "universality" of our results. We hypothesize that the proposed methods may be particular ly useful for fields of S&T (or for levels of aggregation) for which either not enough information is available, or for which evolution is so fast tha t there is not enough time to collect enough data to make an informed decis ion.