Summary of Summaries
Plenary Session 1: How Can Science and Innovation Help ? Selected salient ideas
We need economies that are creative in many ways. Education systems must foster this creativity and excellence, as well as delivering generic skills.
Foundations can play an important role in the innovation system, complementing government in terms of time horizons, as well as industry and can play a catalytic role in “community brainstorming”.
Incentives for innovation are essential, including through the IPR regime, and support for SMEs can be important. Cows and Tigers !
The innovation system needs to be truly joined up. In so doing, the development of basic science is critical (a shoestring budget won’t do). This needs to be complemented with means of translating research results into innovation. There is a need to re-assess the role of basic science in the system of innovation.
There is a need for new public/private partnerships for innovation.
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Plenary Session 2: Science and Innovation Policy on a Shoestring – How Can Governments Better Leverage Public Funding Following the Financial Crisis ?
Salient ideas
- Demand-side policies are important, including public procurement.
- Regulation and standards are important. An interesting point made regarding the need for international collaboration in standards setting and the timing of regulation.
- Need for bridging mechanisms and dialogue between business and policy communities.
- Tools for mapping the benefits from public R&D support are inadequate, although assessment of possible economic and broader societal impacts are essential.
- Linked to the preceding point, there are some rationale criteria for thinking about how to allocate funding in times of acute budget constraint, as exemplified in the remarks of Mr.Willets, but this seems to be an area where more systematic assessment could be required.
Parallel Session 3A: Strengthening science-industry interactions Selected salient ideas
• There needs to be a shift in models of collaboration, towards longer term interactions.
Institutional structures need to change to support this.
• Education is the tech transfer engine and this implies skills and talent for the whole value chain. In addition, skills should be adapted to the requirements of emerging areas of research (e.g. green technologies).
Session 3B: Changing the game – boosting entrepreneurship Selected salient ideas
In the short to medium term, there are a variety of areas in which policies can help catalyse entrepreneurship, including access to finance, an area in which the OECD has been doing significant work.
Longer term, entrepreneurship needs good structural policies: it is not only about eliminating barriers for firms to grow, but also barriers for firms to shrink (churning, productivity).
Entrepreneurship policies would benefit, just like entrepreneurship, from experimentation. In addition, better evaluation of entrepreneurship policies is needed. In addition, it is important to remember that what works in one country may not be as effective in others.
Entrepreneurship does not exist in a vacuum. A well functioning entrepreneurial ecosystem is important for spurring high growth entrepreneurship. More attention is beginning to be focused on this area.
Creating an entrepreneurial culture is also important and entrepreneurship education plays a key role in this respect, although the outcomes are long-term, not immediate.
There is untapped potential of women and immigrants for entrepreneurship.
Plenary Session 4: Fostering green innovation Selected salient ideas
There was a difference among panellists over where in the innovation continuum and on which policies governments should focus but the following key messages can be extracted:
• To win what can be considered a race against time the panellists suggested a complementary strategy of exploiting existing incremental innovations to decrease carbon emissions by accelerating adoption, learning and improvements in the short to medium term; supported by information dissemination and project demonstration and leveraging private markets.
• This however does not exclude a long-term strategy to find a proper true alternative to the hydrocarbon economy that requires funding research and investing in radical innovations to solve the climate change problem.
• All agree that the environmental challenge is a complex and urgent issue that needs diverse solutions. Different technological and policy tools can play a role to solve the problem and at the same time are interdependent:
incremental and radical innovations,
scientific research and non-technological innovations, including frugal innovations from developing countries. green innovation is not only about green technologies but complementary non-green or non-technological innovations have a great role to play for greening economic growth.
short-term and long-term policies;
prices and other policy tools: prices are technology neutral but need to be complemented by other policies more targeted especially in the first stages of a technology . in addition : voluntary actions and anticipation of future regulations and standards (instead of existing regulations) may drive green innovation more than subsidies and direct incentives. Standard and regulations need to be set globally and in a time consistent way.
Innovation for societal challenges, particularly in developing countries, needs a bottom-up, demand-oriented approach. For example, a combination of existing technologies, local resources and good business models could provide very innovative, low-cost solutions to rural population (“frugal innovation”). ICT and social networking tools play a key role in this bottom-up approach as they could
help expand social learning and provide measurement for changing user behaviour and lifestyle.
The green transition needs not only technologies but also political and social changes. New solutions such as an alternative energy system have to be trusted and accepted by the public, avoiding failure like first-generation biofuel. Industry needs confidence in investing for longer term and consistent policy signals, long- term policy planning and international agreements are needed.
Co-operation needs to be accelerated at different levels. Industry needs to work with value chain to find integrated, optimised solutions. We need more engineers to be educated to provide radical technological solutions. To find demand-based, local solutions, co-operation between universities, industry and communities/users is key for success. It is, however, important to recognise and distinguish their different scopes and roles to play in innovation.
• We need a good policy mix – ambitious carbon pricing and progressive standard setting as well as more focused demand-side instruments.
• However, the process underlying Invention and innovation are different and need to be better understood. For example We need to better understand:
o the logic and behaviour of industry in terms of what motivates firms to do green innovations (e.g. 1] profits; 2] market-share/ branding; 3] attract skilled/motivated workforce; 4] social corporate responsibility) and
o how invention from research is turned into profitable innovation.
• Green policies are also faced with difficult challenges:
o Using Prices is difficult since we do not know their right level (by right we mean the level that would be sufficient to stimulate innovation); but the design of targeted policies is also difficult, because of path dependency, therefore there needs to be an exit strategy and support for a multitude of options.
Session 5 – Making the Transformation Happen – applying science and innovation in emerging and developing economies
Some key ‘take home’ points
• Access to international sources of knowledge is essential for innovation in developing countries, with multiple channels playing important roles, such as inter-university international networks and FDI.
• ICT has proven to be a disruptive technology, for example, allowing East Asian countries to develop quickly and in some instances, to leap-frog the traditional technology leaders. Even in less developed countries, such as Kenya, ICTs have led to entrepreneurship among young people looking to develop mobile services.
Furthermore, ICTs have allowed for much greater knowledge exchange between countries, which has had transformative effects in areas such as education and research (but also in supply chains).
• Technology adoption and adaptation aren’t easy activities, requiring greater awareness of the opportunities for adoption, dedicated expert capacity to adopt and adapt, and the development of enabling technology markets.
• While there are still lessons to be had from looking at the development of now advanced economies, there’s also much to be learnt from newly emerging economies, as well as peer ‘South-South’ learning among less developed countries.
• Local incentives and institutions still matter greatly and point to the importance of taking an ecosystem perspective on innovation. By doing so, the opportunities and limits for international learning should also become more apparent. Furthermore, this underlines the fact that innovation is but one piece of the growth puzzle.
Session 6A: International co-operation – scaling up good practices Salient points
• Global challenges don’t stop at borders and technological fixes aren’t enough – good governance is required for international STI collaboration so that social, cultural and political issues are addressed.
• Policy approaches to North-South collaboration must consider local conditions in partner countries, i.e. economic and research environments. Investment in face-to-face contact is worthwhile, and networks endure.
• It is necessary to identify a well defined common interest to underpin successful collaboration efforts.
• Two interesting issues:
o A suggestion for more countries to open their national funding to international researchers.
o What are the consequences of the increasing focus of international collaborations on a) countries with critical mass and b) on certain scientific
areas?
Rapporteur’s Summary
Plenary Session 6B : New Ways for Technology Transfer?
Selected salient ideas
- IP is only one part of technology transfer story; a lot of other mechanisms which can do better job, dependent on countries and industries
- IP system is becoming increasingly stretched and hits its boundaries; however system is not broken but probably mended; a stress test might be beneficial to identify what should change to make it more efficient and accessible
- Completely open pool/source does not do the job; some ownership is needed to create dynamism and facilitate entrepreneurship; ownership helps to structure incentives
- The creation of eco-systems with different stakeholders (business, academia, public policy) facilitate tech transfer; but eco-system do not happen automatically, some guidance and intervention is needed
Plenary Session 7 : Science and Innovation for Inclusive Development 14:00 – 15:30
Selected salient ideas
• There is a huge effort underway to foster innovation among poorer groups, in developing but also some developed countries. An array of institutions is engaged in this. Some governments are using innovation policies as part of broader efforts to foster economic and social inclusion.
Valuable lessons can be learned in terms of the institutional approaches and innovations being employed.
• This high degree of experimentation around the globe underscores the importance of international exchanges of experience in these areas.
• Some of the approaches developed in developing countries might also have relevance for poorer communities and development agencies in the developed world. In some senses, there is a large global market for social innovation.
• Speakers also pointed to some practical technical challenges in foster innovation among and for the poor: new business models for service delivery, new forms of micro-level finance, and the need for virtual incubation schemes were cases in point.
