Linking social media data and patents via Wikipedia for social problem-solving R&D

Abstract

As modern society develops and changes rapidly, social issues occur in various fields and their impact grows and evolves into social problems. Despite the potential for technology to be a solution to social issues, prior studies have focused on social issue detection, but rarely on identifying practical solutions corresponding to the detected social issues. In this study, we propose an approach that relates social media data to patents to identify existing R&D solutions applicable to social issues. The approach involves 1) extracting core keywords of a detected social issue from social media; 2) expanding the core keywords to R&D keywords using Wikipedia as a bridge database between the social issue and patents; 3) identifying R&D solutions utilizing a search query defined with the core keywords and R&D keywords of the social issue; and 4) analyzing detailed technologies of the R&D solutions. This study contributes to the existing literature by proposing a new approach for linking heterogeneous datasets using Wikipedia. Additionally, this study, which identifies R&D solutions to social issues, offers a new direction for social problem-solving R&D as an extension of prior studies on social issues.