Academic infrastructure and competence centres for a potentially evolving nanomanufacturing industry

Nanotechnology is considered by many to be a harbinger of the next |Schumpeterian| economic wave. These Schumpeterian waves drive industry wide |creative| destruction. The authors of this work seek to identify technology bundles within the nanotechnology that offer discontinuities and provide the basis of the core disruptive and enabling aspect of the nanotechnology base. We seek to contribute to the literature by investigating these questions based on the responses of 42 worldwide nano competence and infrastructure centres from 14 countries to a questionnaire. We provide value by presenting the technological portfolio of these |nanocentres| in order to provide the current base of nanotechnological bundles that may comprise the above mentioned core of nanotechnology as a disruptive technology. We investigate the importance of nanotechnology bundles which hold the potential to significantly alter the way miniaturised structures, components and systems are fabricated in future across many industrial settings.