Catherine Herfeld: Model Transfer and its Role in Awakening Sleeping Beauties in Science

Episode von RMZ Science Works von Robert K. Merton Zentrum für Wissenschaftsforschung · 15. April 2026 · 46 min

Model transfer—the use of models developed in one domain to address problems in another—is widespread in science. Yet it remains underexplored, both empirically and philosophically. In the first part of this talk, I outline some initial ideas about how we might systematically and empirically study model transfer. In the second part, I go more into detail and ask whether, and in what ways, model transfer can shape the impact trajectory of “sleeping beauty” papers—papers that “go unnoticed (‘sleep’) for a long time and then, almost suddenly, attract significant attention (‘are awakened by a prince’)” (van Raan 2004). I present preliminary results from a co-citation analysis conducted using computational methods and network-analytic tools. The analysis has two aims: (1) to identify sleeping beauty papers and (2) to examine how model transfer may contribute to their eventual surge in impact. I illustrate the approach with a case study of model transfer between economics and psychology, focusing on the uptake of economic models of temporal discounting.

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