A Scientometric Analysis of the Evolution and Changing Structure in Systems of Innovation Approaches

The present study was conducted to investigate new emerging directions and identify literature by depicting and analysing the historical origins, contemporary research fields and intellectual authors in the domain of Innovation Systems. Using the ISI WoS database, we deployed a systematic review of the literature using scientometric approaches for delineating the various innovation systems in STS literature and conduct a specific analysis of each system. Publications in the WoS database were filtered using the search string “innovat* NEAR/2 syst*” in the publication title for the period 1990 to 2017. A total of 692 innovation-related publications with contributions from 1651 authors were processed article by article, and as a result, 7 innovation clusters were reviewed using highly frequent cited papers. After constructing a co-citation network map to derive the structure and origins in the innovation systems field, we found that 330 (47.68%) of all publications were published in only 12 (5.71%) journals in research areas of business economics, public administration, environmental sciences ecology, geography and science technology. In mapping the evolution and salient features of the innovation systems approach, we performed a keyword co-occurrence textual analysis which reveals important characteristics about each innovation cluster. More so, topics like “policy”, “technology” and “knowledge” continues to be dominant research topics in all periods of the study. However, emerging topics are moving away from the theories and processes of innovation. The paper aims to be a potential guide to science policy researchers and newcomers to become familiar with this field of study as it examines the salient features and evolution in the field of innovation studies.