Technological opportunity discovery for technological convergence based on the prediction of technology knowledge flow in a citation network

Highlights • This paper proposes a quantitative future-oriented approach to technological opportunity discovery for convergence using patent information.• The proposed approach predicts potential technological knowledge flows between heterogeneous fields.• The technological opportunities between biotechnology and information technology are used to illustrate the proposed method.• This paper identifies technological opportunities for convergence with direction and strength of potential knowledge flows.