Articles

New Suggestion to Measure the Level of Technology Fusion: Technology Fusion Index

Jaebum Hong

Abstract

This study proposes the technology fusion index as a means to measure the intensity of technology fusion in SME research and development projects on fusion technology. The technology fusion index classifies technologies based on NSTSC (National Science and Technology Standard Classification), analyzes their contributions to the projects and applies Berry-Herfindahl index to measure between 1 and 0. The technology fusion index has the following advantages: First, it enables objective measurement of the level of technology fusion in research and development projects, fair selection of project tasks and effective assessment of project achievements. In addition, it can be combined with national science and technology statistics from NSTSC for more thorough analysis since it is based on NSTSC. The limitation of this study is that it fails to expand technology fusion to the industry level. The Korean government has expanded the concept of technology fusion to the industry level since the enactment of the Industrial Convergence Promotion Act in 2011, and has been making strenuous efforts to foster the industry as one of the country’s new growth engines. This study falls short of meeting such government expectations and the issue of technology fusion industry remains open for future research work.

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