Events
Past Event
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Mohammad Ahmadpoor, Kellogg School of Management "The Dual Frontier: Patentable Inventions and Prior Scientific Advance"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level Chambers Hall
Details
The Dual Frontier: Patentable Inventions and Prior Scientific Advance
Speaker:
Mohammad Ahmadpoor - Postdoctoral Fellow, Strategy Department, Kellogg School of Management
Talk Abstract:
Mohammad Ahmadpoor 1 Benjamin F. Jones 1,2
1. Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
2. National Bureau of Economic Research
We build a new knowledge map, linking 4.8 million U.S. patents to 32 million research articles in the Web of Science, to determine the minimum citation distance between patentable inventions and prior scientific advances. The distance metric provides a new typology of impact to characterize fields, funders, institutions, and individuals. The metric can also inform long-standing ideas about the nature of scientific and technological progress. We find that the integrated citation network encompasses the majority of both patents and papers. Yet the linkages are typically indirect, peaking 3 degrees (papers) and 2 degrees (patents) from the patent-paper boundary, and fields vary enormously. The findings of majority connectivity, indirect connectivity, and the prevalence of university-to-firm linkages across the paper-patent boundary are consistent with some core conceptions of the “linear model– of science. However, consistent with more recent theories of scientific and technological progress, the same individual often bridges the patent-paper boundary, and advances along the patent-paper boundary appear strikingly more impactful within their respective domains.
Live Stream:
To join the Meeting: bluejeans.com/8474912527
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Time
Wednesday, January 11, 2017 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO Fall Seminar Series returns on Sept 24th!
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
//
Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details

The Wednesdays @ NICO Fall Seminar Series returns on September 24th and will run through November 12th, 2025. Please visit our web site in early September for detailed speaker information, talk titles and abstracts.
This fall, we are honored to host the following distinguished speakers:
9/24 - Emma Alexander, Dept of Computer Science, Northwestern University
10/1 - Sebastien Martin, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
10/8 - Tomer Ullman, Dept of Psychology, Harvard University
10/15 - Patrick Park, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
10/22 - Max Kreminski, Midjourney
10/29 - Elizabeth Gerber, Mechanical Engineering and Communication Studies, Northwestern University
11/5 - Julio Ottino, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Northwestern University
11/12 - Blaise Aguera y Arcas, Google Research
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: TBA via Zoom
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems, data science and network science. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.
Time
Wednesday, September 24, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)