STATE OF THE ART: DEFINITION
STATE OF THE ART: DEFINITIONThe state of the art aims to describe the current state of scientific and technical knowledge on a given subject at a specific point in time.
This is essential work to be carried out before any R&D project. The objective of a state-of-the-art review is to provide an overview of current knowledge, highlighting its limitations and, where necessary, confirming the value of further investigation. In other words, the goal of a state-of-the-art review is to gather and utilize all existing knowledge on a research topic, and avoid reinventing the wheel.
IN WHICH CASES IS IT APPROPRIATE TO CREATE A STATE OF THE ART?
IN WHICH CASES IS IT APPROPRIATE TO CREATE A STATE OF THE ART?Apart from certain very specific cases and for which the exercise is obligatory (completion of a Research Tax Credit (CIR) file, start of doctoral thesis work or even a patent filing), know the state of the art can serve multiple objectives for an R&D director:
- Have a clear and synthetic vision of a technological environment to make the right strategic decisions.
- Obtain documentation in order to cross-reference technologies and identify possible new partners.
- Demonstrate the interest of a new R&D project , by highlighting the technical obstacles that previous work has not been able to resolve.
- Understand a field as part of a technological diversification project , and thus have an overview of the new sector, the players and its trends.
- Investigate a weak signal. For example, you have heard of a new technology and are seeking to understand the related issues, to refine your knowledge of this universe and decide, with perfect mastery of the subject, whether it is necessary to take up it or not.
- Promote and relaunch current research projects , through the identification of solutions or resources that can help circumvent a lock.
- Identify a new technology to develop outside of its core business. The latter can be developed internally, or in partnership with other actors. The qualification of a candidate technology can also make it possible to detect innovative start-ups or SMEs.
Analysis of the best start-ups, examples of innovative products… It is also not uncommon for an R&D director to have to produce in a few days (and sometimes less…) a quick overview , in order to present to his management the state of innovation in a very specific field.
HOW TO MAKE A STATE OF THE ART?
HOW TO MAKE A STATE OF THE ART?STEP 1
To compile a reference bibliography and collect data, one must first define a good "research strategy".
First, you need to identify all available works related to your research topic.
In very concrete terms, a state of the art therefore starts with multiple queries on search engines for databases (free, increasingly numerous or paid) .
This involves collecting various scientific publications, as well as patents and web articles dealing with the subject. If you have clearly defined the scope of your topic, the main keywords are easy to determine.
As you conduct your initial searches, you will refine them to either complete or exclude keywords that return too much "noise," meaning irrelevant documents. At this stage, you may need to use Boolean operators (And, Or), exclusion operators (Not), or even proximity operators (for example, X words difference between "Word A" and "Word B").
Good to know: for your literature review to be relevant, the time spent refining your search strategy (not to be confused with the analysis phase) can be quite lengthy . And you'll always prefer to keep some "noise"—that is, irrelevant documents that are difficult to exclude without losing useful information. It will then be easy to exclude them during the analysis phase. Conversely, silence (what might be interesting but that you haven't collected) will go completely unnoticed and unmeasurable.
It would therefore be better search scope a little
STEP 2
Analyze and structure information
It is very common for the documentary collection compiled for a state of the art to include several hundred or even several thousand documents.
The state-of-the-art report cannot simply be limited to a list of interesting documents or a "best-of" of the best passages.
You need to organize your thinking, comparing the different articles to build your own analysis . And of course, the sources used and the list of keywords (together they constitute your research strategy) must be cited, as well as the time period and, where applicable, the geographical area covered.
STEP 3
Synthesize the collected knowledge and draw the necessary conclusions
From the overview provided, it is now necessary to demonstrate how current knowledge allows or does not allow us to respond to your problem . A state of the art can also aim to highlight possible technological obstacles or scientific uncertainties. This will be particularly the case in a technical file linked to the Research Tax Credit.
STATE OF THE ART: WORK WHICH CAN BE TIRING BUT CRUCIAL FOR R&D TEAMS
STATE OF THE ART: WORK WHICH CAN BE TIRING BUT CRUCIAL FOR R&D TEAMSAs you know, conducting a state-of-the-art review requires time and specific expertise .
The mistake not to make would be to devote 75% of your time to collecting and only 25% to analysis. By structuring your project well, and working on your research strategy upstream, you will be able to reverse this proportion. Not only will this work of creating a state of the art seem less tedious to you but above all it will have infinitely more strategic value!
Every doctoral student has (normally) learned to produce state-of-the-art studies, but once on the job, it is not uncommon for them to delegate this task, due to lack of time and… motivation.
However, when conducted properly, this exercise can prove extremely useful and conducive to a genuine step back and reflection on the strategic questions the company is asking itself . A state-of-the-art review not only allows one to anticipate emerging trends and identify interesting partners (academic or industrial), but also, most often, to reposition the strategic question in a more informed manner.
In innovation, it is often this small step to the side that we can take when posing the problem, when asking the question, that most often allows us to emerge with a truly original, innovative and disruptive approach.
The state of the art is the first step in your journey towards a formulated question as it opens the field of possibilities.
WHAT SOLUTIONS CAN YOU CREATE USEFUL STATES OF THE ART WITHOUT SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME?
WHAT SOLUTIONS CAN YOU CREATE USEFUL STATES OF THE ART WITHOUT SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME?To make the work of your R&D teams easier, TKM innovation has developed a software suite.
Our solution is part of this: an AI-powered software platform that gathers and enables the analysis of all data from scientific literature*, regardless of its form or volume .
TKM Platform offers clear visualizations and summaries based on semantic analysis tools that allow teams to collaborate via a secure platform to share comments, ratings, and selections of documents they have identified as relevant.
Thanks to our tools, you will be able to spend less time on data collection, and much more on the really useful phase: analysis and sharing with colleagues and teams;
The diverse documentary resources offered by TKM Platform, for example, allow you to benefit from a 360° approach to your subject, without being limited to your specific field of application. Through its data visualization and mapping , which provide a comprehensive overview of research trends, TKM Platform also enables you to capitalize on these analyses and keep them at the heart of your business as a true intangible asset: the knowledge accumulated year after year, project after project.
*: every year several million scientific articles, theses, patents, online conferences, etc., are published worldwide. The risk of missing important information or a weak signal becomes too great.
You don't have time to carry out your own state-of-the-art reviews, even with a super-powerful tool?
No problem. You can also entrust the entire state-of-the-art review to TKM's experts. Whatever your needs, the expertise of our consulting engineers, the numerous data sources at our disposal, combined with the power of our tool, will allow you to leverage weak signals, identify promising partners, and detect emerging technologies early.
