An invitation to discuss how to mobilize science, technology and innovation for global challenges

How can we develop an international strategy for international collaboration in science, technology and innovation to meet global challenges?

To subscribers of the Beyond STIG mailing list and readers of the Beyond STIG blog.

Photo: Jacob Wackerhausen

I refer to the Paris workshop on science diplomacy  in February this year and the follow up to the OECD-project on the governance of international STI-collaboration for global challenges (STIG).

As many of you will know, we have set up this blog for dissemination of information on this topic. I have added two blog posts on the seminar here and here.

Now is the time to discuss future efforts in this area.

I would  like to share with you the notes Klaus Matthes,the Science Adviser to the German embassy in Paris, made from the workshop.  Not only do these notes included important points made during the presentations and the following discussions. They also includes general observation as regards the needs for future action in this field.

Klaus Matthes makes the following observation:

“Considering that science diplomacy is still a vague and nebulous policy term - especially concerning the relevant activities of the German and French government - we believe, that it might be helpful, if science itself takes it up as a research project with the goal to make concrete proposals what governments could or should undertake. My idea - according to our STIG-approach - is to ask competent scientists in interested countries to work on this in an open network, supported by OECD-CSTP or by ICSU.”

His proposal addresses two important pressing needs identified by the STIG-project: The need to identify urgent challenges requiring an STI response, and  finding ways to make this urgency felt in the global public arena.

My question to you is this: Do you think this is the right way of addressing these problems? Do you have other suggestions as regards future action in this area?

I suggest you add comments and proposals as comments to this blog post. (Click on "comments" below!).

Best regards,

Per Koch

Former Chair of the OECD STIG

Klaus' notes can be found here!

The OECD work on science, technology and innovation for global and societal challenges

The first regular session on the Paris conference on science diplomacy and health research focused on the OECD STIG project and the OECD use of STIG in its current work.

Below find the presentations of the chief scientist of STIG, Andreas Stamm and Ken Guy, the head of the Science and Technology Policy Division of the OECD.

Stamm presented the findings from the STIG project.  His presentation can be downloaded here.

Guy presented the current work of the OECD in the area of science and innovation collaboration for societal challenges. His presentation has been embedded below.

Conference on governance for international science co-operation: the example of Health research

Dr. Silke Beck from the
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research.

There was a follow up conference to the OECD STIG project on February 11 and 12 this year in Paris.

The conference, titled "Science diplomacy in action, Governance for international science co-operation:
the example of Health research", was arranged by the German and British embassies in Paris in collaboration with the French organisation AVRIST (Association de valorisation des relations internationales scientifiques et technologiques).

The agenda included many very interesting presentations from the border area between policy making and research, with a focus on international R&D collaboration in the area of health.

The participants were welcomed by Alice Dautry, Directrice générale of Institut Pasteur, who hosted the conference.  Sir Peter Ricketts, British Ambassador to France  and Susanne Wasum-Rainer, German Ambassador to France opened the event.

I have included a few of the presentations below to give you an idea of the kind of topics and arguments the conference covered.

All presentations can be found at the AVRIST site.
The conference programme is available here.

This is the Powerpoint-presentation made by Zafar Mirza,  WHO, who presented the WHO perspective on global health research:

Hugh Laverty of the Innovative Medicines Initiative discussed the challenges facing the development of  new medicines:

 

The Royal Society and Imperial College Workshops on Governance of International STI Collaboration

From the Royal Society PolicyLab on STIG
October 19 2012 (photo: P Koch)

Possible follows up of the OECD STIG project on governance of international science, technology and innovation collaboration for meeting global challenges were discussed at two workshops held in London in late October.

The first one was held at the Royal Society on October 29, where the STIG project as well as the Royal Society's own work in the area were presented and discussed.

There were presentations by Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith FRS, Chair of the Royal Society Knowledge  networks and nations study, Per Koch, Innovation Norway; Chair of  OECD STIG, Keith Smith, Imperial College London and Ken Guy, Head of Science and Technology Policy, OECD.

From the Imperial College Workshop on
October 30 (Photo: P Koch)

On October 30 experts and policy makers associated with the OECD STIG project met at the Imperial College to discuss further  issues, including  how  to categorize global STI problems,  the best conceptual tools for addressing multilateral collaboration issues, and the institutional forms through which collaboration can be implemented.

An important discussion point was the shape of possible  follow-up projects on policy collaboration for global challenges.

Click here for the Imperial College workshop agenda!

Click here for the Imperial Workshop Summary!

New OECD report on Energy and Climate Policy

Photo: Jan Will

OECD has published a new book, Energy and Climate Policy, Bending the Technological Trajectory.

The book presents a series of papers that explore the extent to which technological innovation can lower the cost of achieving climate change mitigation objectives.

In other words: It discusses the role public policy can play in accelerating the development and diffusion of climate change mitigating technologies and should therefore be relevant to the debate on STI and global challenges.

The report is available here.

Research Policy Covers Grand Challenges and Policy

Research Policy has published a special issue on the need for a new generation of policy instruments to respond to the Grand Challenges.

In this issue, Profs Foray, Mowery and Nelsonpresent  an article called "Public R&D and social challenges: What lessons from mission R&D programs?", where they argue that   Manhattan and Apollo are not the right models for new programs aimed at the challenges we now face:

" Nevertheless, mission-oriented R&D programs can be of great value if they are well designed to fit the particular challenge and the context. Second, we believe that familiarity with a range of existing mission oriented R&D programs can provide useful guidance for the design of new programs aimed at these challenges."

Research Policy Special Issue Papers

• "Public R&D and social challenges: What lessons from mission R&D programs?" by D. Foray, D.C. Mowery and R.R. Nelson
• "Defense-related R&D as a model for “Grand Challenges” technology policies" by D.C. Mowery
• "Grand missions of agricultural innovation" by B.D. Wright
• "Mission-oriented biomedical research at the NIH" by B.N. Sampat
• "Missions-oriented RD&D institutions in energy between 2000 and 2010: A comparative analysis of China, the United Kingdom, and the
• United States"by L.D. Anadón
• "Public Procurement for Innovation as mission-oriented innovation policy" by C. Edquist and J.M. Zabala-Iturriagagoitia
• "Which policy instruments to induce clean innovating?" by R. Veugelers
• "Grand Innovation Prizes: A theoretical, normative, and empirical evaluation" by F. Murray, S. Stern, G. Campbell and A. MacCormack

The Beyond STIG mailing list for governace of international STI collaboration for global challenges



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We have set up a mailing list for the dissemination of information of relevance to Beyond STIG.

The mailing list can be used to disseminate information of relevance to the governance of international research and innovation collaboration for meeting global challenges.

If you want your email address added to the list, send an email to me at per.koch@innovationnorway.no.

And no, we will not allow people to use the list for spamming mail boxes.

Per Koch
STIG Chair