DRUID18, Copenhagen, June 11-13, 2018
Science is Shaped by Wikipedia: Evidence From a Randomized Control Trial
Neil C Thompson, Sloan School of Management, TIES
Douglas Hanley, University of Pittsburgh, Economics
ABSTRACT: As the largest encyclopedia in the world, it is not surprising that Wikipedia reflects the state of scientific knowledge. However, Wikipedia is also one of the most accessed websites in the world, including by scientists, which suggests that it also has the potential to shape science. This paper shows that it does. Incorporating ideas into Wikipedia leads to those ideas being used more in the scientific literature. We provide correlational evidence of this across thousands of Wikipedia articles and causal evidence of it through a randomized control trial where we add new scientific content to Wikipedia. We find that the causal impact is strong, with Wikipedia influencing roughly one in every 830 words in related scientific journal articles. We also find causal evidence that the scientific articles referenced in Wikipedia receive more citations, suggesting that Wikipedia complements the traditional journal system by pointing researchers to key underlying scientific articles. Our findings speak not only to the influence of Wikipedia, but more broadly to the influence of repositories of scientific knowledge and the role that they play in the creation of scientific knowledge.
“A melting pot. It has been, and still is, a giant network for innovation which also connects to the rest of the world, and it is an institution beyond compare in Denmark within this field. An important driver for national research integration and instrumental in stimulating interaction among the cognitive networks that relate in different ways to innovation research”.
“New thinking and understanding is very much needed on the behavior of firms and industries in today’s rapidly changing economy, and the challenges for public policy. The meetings of DRUID have been and will continue to be one of the most supportive loci for such new thinking.”
“DRUID has become an exceptionally valuable well-regarded node in the global network of scholars concerned with innovation, technical change, and related issues of policy and organization. I have been a regular attendee at the Summer conferences and an occasional participant in the Winter conferences for PhDs. It has been a pleasure to participate as the conferences advanced in every dimension, including intellectual stimulation, research interactions, organization, and opportunities for interaction with scholars from around the world.”
“The DRUID conferences have now become the preeminent international venue for presenting leading research on innovation and industrial dynamics. In serving this purpose, DRUID also has come to serve as a critical facilitator in the kinds of intellectual exchanges, discussions and debates that advance knowledge and thinking in this terribly important research domain.”
“DRUID has become a terribly important catalyst for research efforts in a broad range of areas, including studies of innovation, entrepreneurship, management, industry dynamics, and economic geography. DRUID plays this role most prominently with respect to its major annual conference, but also via its doctoral student and junior faculty development workshops. There is not really a parallel to the DRUID conference as it simultaneously has tremendous scale of activity, but at the same time a rather tight topical focus.”
“I am a big DRUID fan!! DRUID conferences have long served as a very important venue for academic exchanges on topics at the leading edge of innovation research.”
“DRUID as an organization, and especially the summer conference, serves as a critical nexus for European and North American scholars interested in entrepreneurship, innovation, industry evolution, and economic geography. DRUID has played an important role in advancing research on these topics by creating connections across related disciplines. I find the DRUID community welcoming and unusually stimulating intellectually. Many North American scholars hold DRUID in similarly high regard.”
“I think it would be fair to say that increasingly among the elite schools globally DRUID is regarded as the equivalent of the Academy of Management in the European context and many US and Asia based scholars, if they pick a European conference to attend, it is DRUID.”
“I would like to make a strong endorsement for DRUID as a leading institution and event with significant visibility and recognition in the international community of strategy and innovation scholars. DRUID is one of the leading event for many of us, because of the widespread set of scholars, the high-quality level of its symposia and debates, and several other related matters.”
“DRUID is unique in incubating interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary topics. DRUID’s focus on industrial dynamics is a significant topic, which has the ability to evolve and redefine as conditions change. When I attend the summer conference I always learn new concepts and see original ideas. The winter conference provides an opportunity for younger scholars to get small group feedback on their work.”
“The kinds of presentations one hears at DRUID are unique on the international stage, with its blend of economists, industrial economists, management studies professors, and strategy people. It is a great place to meet people interested in questions of organizational learning and process, and I particularly find attention to mechanisms refreshing in a field that otherwise spends a lot of time on descriptive results.”
“In an era of sound bites, bubbles and fashionable trends in academia as in the rest of the world, DRUID stands out in its thoughtful, contemplative, yet relevant approach to some of the most urgent topics, issues and fields of our time. It has become the gold standard for bringing together a broad spectrum of scholars, spanning a number of diverse academic backgrounds for meaningful and thoughtful conversations.”
“DRUID has been a vital gathering place for the study of industrial dynamics, innovation, and management since its inception 20 years ago. Some of the best scholars in these fields have attended and debated at DRUID meetings, resulting in a wonderful intellectual community that is worthy of continued support.”
“DRUID has been the most successful European research organization in business and management or the past two decades. It has acted not only as a source of valuable research, but even more important as forum for scholars of business and social sciences from across the globe–both junior researchers and established leaders in their fields. Most important, DRUID has done a remarkable job of encouraging the interchange of ideas across different fields through a focus on important current phenomenon.”
“DRUID has become one of the go-to networks and conference events where North American scholars meet their European counterparts in a sustained trans-Atlantic dialogue on innovation and innovation policy. It is an essential bridge between the two continents. DRUID has been the key international and interdisciplinary forum for scholarship on innovation for 20 years now. DRUID is unique in its combination of scholarly rigor, policy relevance and the building of bridges between economics, business, organizational studies, geography and sociology for a comprehensive and border-crossing look at the rapidly-moving world of innovation.”
“From its inception 25 years ago, DRUID has grown to be the go-to conference for innovation and entrepreneurship scholars from a range of disciplines, especially from my field of urbanism and economic geography. DRUID has impact, it has helped to develop and shape an important field not just for academia but for creating more innovative economies and more prosperous societies.”
“Thank you for the continued excellence of the DRUID conference and the service that DRUID provides to the academic and scientific community. I must say that the consistently high quality, and the hallmark debates make it one of my favorite conferences. Every year’s conference is better than the year before.”
“DRUID is known as the premiere conference for business and management scholars working at the intersection of innovation, technology, economics, history and management.”
“DRUID is recognized internationally as one of the premier conferences on innovation and entrepreneurship, attracting leading researchers and experts in these fields year after year.”
“I have been going to DRUID conferences nearly since its inception. When I think of the academic leaders such as Dick Nelson, Nate Rosenberg, Sid Winter, Dave Mowery, Charles Edquist, Bengt-Ake Lundvall, and so many more that I met at DRUID and how those connections helped my career, it is difficult to think of another and better conference.”
“DRUID has become a leading international community and conference in the area of innovation management and strategy. It is well known on both sides of the Atlantic. Even though it has grown dramatically over the years that I have attended, it retains a unique identity and “personality”. DRUID is always a part of summer I look forward to, both to reconnect with friends and colleagues and hear about their latest work, but also to be stimulated by the always-topical debates. DRUID is never boring, which cannot be said of most academic conferences. Indeed, from my viewpoint, DRUID is the top European management conference.”
“DRUID is the preeminent innovation conference in all of Europe. I think the fact that it has the top names in the field in attendance is an indication of its importance for the profession.”
“DRUID has become one of the most important international gatherings of scholars concerned with industrial dynamics, innovation and entrepreneurship. Its unique blend of debates, critical and detailed discussions of new research, and its capacity-building efforts for early career scholars have encouraged not only the formation of a richer and broader academic community, but it has also lifted the research ambitions of that community.”
