Loet Leydesdorff


Louis André Leydesdorff is a Dutch sociologist, cyberneticist and Professor in the Dynamics of Scientific Communication and Technological Innovation at the University of Amsterdam. He is known for his work in the sociology of communication and innovation.

Biography

Leydesdorff was born in 1948 in Djakarta in the Dutch Indies. He received a B.Sc. in chemistry in 1969, a M.Sc. biochemistry in 1973, an M.A. in philosophy in 1977 and in 1984 a Ph.D. in sociology.
In 1969 he started working as part-time professor for chemical technology at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. In 1972 he started his career at the University of Amsterdam as teaching assistant for "Science and Society" at the Philosophy Faculty. In 1980 he became Senior lecturer at the Department of Science & Technology Dynamics of the University of Amsterdam and since 2000 the Amsterdam School of Communications Research as well.
Leydesdorff is on the editorial boards of several journals since 1987. He further worked for the Enterprise and Innovation Management Studies journal 1999-2001, for Science, Technology and Society in 2001-02 and for the Journal of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics from 1995 to 1998. As contributing editor he also worked for Science, Technology & Human Values 1988-1990 and for Science & Technology Studies 1987-1988.
He received the Derek de Solla Price Memorial Medal for scientometrics in 2003. Since 2006 he has been Honorary Research Fellow at the Virtual Knowledge Studio of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. And since 2007 Honorary Fellow of SPRUScience and Technology Policy Research of the University of Sussex. Currently he is president of the Dutch Systems Group society, the society that cofounded the International Federation for Systems Research in the begin of the 1980s.

Work

Leydesdorff's research interests are in the fields of the philosophy of science, social network analysis, scientometrics, and the sociology of innovation. His studies in communication in science, technology, and innovation enabled him to specify theory and methods for understanding the dynamics of knowledge-based development.

Selected publications

Leydesdorff has published extensively in fields of systems theory, social network analysis, scientometrics, and the sociology of innovation. Books:
Articles, a selection: