A simple method for estimating technology maturity
"Technology maturity" means whether a technology is still in an early research stage, or if it has become a commodity product already. Or if it’s anything in between. For example,
asteroid mining is probably closer to the “research” stage. By contrast,
smartwatches are a commodity product.
Below is a back-of-the-envelope, data-supported method for estimating tech maturity levels. The idea behind the method is that
depending on its maturity level, a technology typically shows up in different types of data.
For a
research-stage technology, we expect to see science publications and R&D funding, but not much else. Once a technology is
intermediate-stage, there should also be technology licensing, patents, and initial venture capital investments. For a
mature technology, we expect to see mainstream news and market analyses.
Conversely, this means that
the maturity of a
technology can be estimated by the data sets it appears in.
We distinguish four levels of technology maturity:
- Mature. Corresponds to Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) 7-9.
- Intermediate. Corresponds to TRLs 4-6.
- Research-Stage. Corresponds to TRLs 1-3.
- Hype. We added this level. It refers to a technology that receives lots of attention, and perhaps even investment, but that has no science to back it up.
For more background, you can check out our
guide on data-based tech maturity estimates.
We also made a
visual checklist to guide you through the method (click on the preview below to get to the full version):
Here are our technology maturity levels, and how you can estimate them using Mergeflow data:
Mature
If your topic is present in at least two of...
- Venture capital investments
- Market estimates
- Mainstream industry news
- Clinical trials, Phase 4
If your topic is in none of the data sets above,
move on to Intermediate.
Intermediate
If your topic is present in at least one of...
- Venture capital investments
- Technology licensing
- Patents
If your topic is in none of these data sets,
move on to Research-Stage.
Research-Stage
If your topic is present in one or both of...
- Scientific publications
- Funded research projects
...but nowhere else.
Hype
(we added this level)
If your topic is present in one or both of...
- Venture capital investments
- Technology blogs
...but nowhere else (particularly not in scientific publications).