Comments on Francis Narin, recipient of the 1988 Derek de Solla Price award

'Science and technology indicators are quantitative measures of RD what is the trend of a country's scientific performance (as measured in publication numbers), and what is its impact (and where does that come from); to give a topical example: is British science declining or not? what are the areas of strength and weakness in the technology of a country, or of a specific company? what is the scientific basis of recent technological developments and innovations? and so on. A common criticism to work like this, is that it is 'only numbers'. Of course, this is not true. Structuring data in an innovative way does give new information, new insight. Numbers need explanation, but explanation needs data. From the above it is clear that science and technology studies are not only Francis Narin's academic interest, but also his business interest. Like IBM, Bell, Philips, but