Although there has been an increasing use of 'proof-of-concept' in practice, the literature is highly poor on the subject. Indeed, we perform a literature overview with an historical perspective of PoC-related studies by drawing upon diverse research domains (aerospace/defense medicine, security, start-up, and design thinking). The study is based on a domain-by-domain analysis and a cross-domain analysis. We try to map PoC-related studies and emphasises their differences with the help of two performance dimensions that are generativity and robustness. We investigate the enrichment of the concept through its diffusion in different contexts and over time. This paper presents insights, especially through its synthesis table, that could be beneficial for researchers and practitioners interested in the field of technology and innovation development.
