Investigating the interaction and mutual dependence between science and technology

Literature on the economics of science and technology (S&T) suggests not only that technological innovation demands the expansion of the institutional borders between universities, research institutes, industrial companies and the financial system, but also that science leads as well as follows technology. Medical innovation in particular is very dependent on scientific research, which represents a source of information that impels the productive sector. The latter introduces a series of questions that motivate the researchers in their attempt to understand how the human body reacts to certain products and therapies. This paper analyses the pattern of S&T interaction for both the national system of innovation (NSI) and the health innovation system. The panel data and simultaneous equations models analyze the interaction between S&T. The theory about the existence of a mutual dependence between them has been confirmed, which means that science moves technology and technology also influences scientific development. The estimated models, which use data from scientific papers and patents as proxies of science and technology, represent just the tip of the iceberg called NSI, known as a multifaceted and complex institutional arrangement.     

The impact of stronger intellectual property rights on science and technology in developing countries

This paper identifies some effects of the global trend towards stronger protection of intellectual property rights on developing countries, and traces related debates. Pharmaceutics, biodiversity and ethnic knowledge are critical areas of impact. ‘Trade-relating’ intellectual property might allow developing countries to be compensated, but incentive implementation of optimal compensation in the legislatures seems infeasible. Scientific communities in developing countries are particularly vulnerable to limitations of cooperation and access to information, resulting from stronger intellectual property rights protection, as their efforts to obtain normal science results must be considerable. Consequences of the Bayh-Dole Act and of the patenting of research tools on international scientific cooperation are analysed in this context.     

The governance and performance of Xerox’s technology spin-off companies

Companies that conduct internal research cannot fully specify the output from that research in advance. Inevitably, spillovers may result. A company might choose to create a technology spin-off company to realize value from such research spillovers. But how is such a spin-off to be governed? Effective spin-off governance structures in a highly uncertain environment must promote experimentation and adaptation, in order to unlock the latent value in a technology. These can conflict with structures intended to manage coordination with the parent firm’s complementary assets.This paper analyses 35 spin-off organizations that arose from the Xerox Corporation. Xerox’s own initial equity position is negatively correlated with the subsequent performance of its spin-offs, but this is due not to their equity per se, but Xerox’s practices in managing its spin-offs. Spin-offs with a higher percentage of venture capital investors on their Boards were associated with higher financial performance, while spin-offs with a Xerox insider as CEO were associated with lower financial performance. Qualitative interview data suggest that Xerox’s practices caused its spin-offs to search locally near Xerox’s own business, while spin-offs governed by outside investors’ practices searched a broader space for commercializing their technologies.     

Tracing the links between science and technology: An exploratory analysis of scientists’ and inventors’ networks

The paper provides an exploratory analysis of the research networks linking scientists working in an open science environment, and researchers involved in the private technology domain. The study combines data on scientific co-authorship with data on patent co-invention, at the level of individual researchers, for three science-intensive technology fields, i.e. lasers, semiconductors and biotechnology, in order to assess the extent of the overlap between the two communities and to identify the role of key individuals in the process of knowledge transfer. Our findings reveal that the extent of the connectedness among scientists and inventors is rather large, and that particular individuals, i.e. authors-inventors, who act as gatekeepers and bridge the boundaries between the two domains, are fundamental to ensuring this connectivity. These individuals tend to occupy prominent positions in the scientific and the technological networks. However, our results also show maintaining a very central position in the scientific network may come at the expense of being able to fill a similarly central position in a technological network (and vice versa). Finally, preliminary analysis of the institutional origins of authors-inventors shows that one characteristic, distinctive of Europe compared to the United States, is associated with the relatively lower involvement of corporate scientists at the intersection between the two worlds of science and technology.     

Transformative technology and institutional transformation: Coevolution of biotechnology venture firms and the institutional framework in Japan

Japan is developing a national strategy for biotechnology, which it sees as a transformative technology of strategic importance. Significant institutional transformation has occurred, including changes to the legal structure of universities, partly in an effort to enhance technology transfer. These and other institutional changes are proving conducive to entrepreneurship, and have developed alongside an increase in the number of biotechnology venture firms. This paper presents an overview of these institutional transformations, in the light of recent deregulation and legislative changes. It posits that the emergence of bioventure firms, the increase in their number and, arguably, their changing nature are manifestations of the coevolution of organizations with changes to the institutional framework. Finally, it gives examples of several bioventures, based on interviews conducted with the founders and chief scientists in Japan, and reveals some of the salient characteristics of these firms.     

我国非政府科技奖励与发达国家的差距及对策

当前我国已有196个非政府奖项正在面向全国开展科技奖励活动,但与发达国家相比,我国非政府科技奖励在设奖数量和规模、社会影响力和地位、奖项管理以及开放程度等方面还存在较大的差距。这主要是由我国特殊的经济、政治和社会体制的束缚,传统观念和社会结构体制的影响以及非政府奖项的管理和完善需要一个过程等原因造成的。要缩小与发达国家的差距,可采取积极鼓励和引导社会力量设奖,对国家科技奖励制度进行适当调整,充分整合社会资源,引入质量管理体系,加大设立国际科技奖的力度,提高非政府奖项的立法等级等措施。     

Zones of inhibition: interactions between art and science

It has been suggested that successful art helps to solve our emotional problems. Can it therefore help with our current crisis in the relationship between biological science and society? Art and science are activities that have seemingly different cultures; scientists are seen as objective and rational, artists as subjective and intuitive. Each inhabit cultures that are seen to be mutually exclusive, but this has not always been the case. For example, during the Renaissance, people were schooled across both art and science and there was no clear dividing line. Where did the split occur, and is their interaction important in the 21st century?     

基于美国《科学与工程指标》的中外科技比较

通过对美国《科学与工程指标》中与中国相关部分的科技竞争力指标数据的综合分析,在对比中国与其它国家尤其是亚洲国家在科学与工程领域中高等教育、科研产出、技术开发等多个方面的实力后,得出一些启发,为中国在科学与工程领域今后的发展提供参考咨询。     

Brave old world: Accounting for ‘high-tech’ knowledge in ‘low-tech’ industries

‘Lower-tech’ sectors are still commonly regarded as unusual suspects in the modern process of innovation and economic change. In this paper we try to understand better how organisations specialising in traditional businesses have been transformed by a period of paradigm-shift such as the one that characterised the final decades of the twentieth century. We focus on a population of nearly 500 of the world's largest innovative companies to assess the extent to which companies belonging to ‘old-economy’ sectors have been developing cutting-edge knowledge about clusters of new technologies such as ICT, new materials and biotechnology. We find that ‘non-high-tech’ corporations transformed their patent portfolios in a non-trivial way. Companies in mature trades contributed significantly to the development of technologies that are at the core of the so-called Third Industrial Revolution.     

省部科技合作：从国家科技管理迈向“国家-区域”科技治理

 中国的科技管理模式经历了中央指令型科技管理和政府引导型科技管理两个时期,第二个时期又可以细分为改革阶段,深化改革阶段,省部合作、科技治理阶段3个阶段。导致这一演化的因素是中央与地方政府间合作关系的建立,部分科技产品的准公共属性以及我国科技资源的稀缺性、分散性与浪费等。省部科技合作具有主体上的多中心,对象上的准公共属性以及网络化特征。应建立府际或者跨区域科技协调机构,明确合作治理机制中“中央-地方”的角色定位,以及构建“垂直省部、水平跨域、公私合作”的科技治理网络。     

Effects of taxation on social innovation and implications for achieving sustainable development goals in developing countries: A literature review

In developing countries, taxation is perceived as a brake on economic growth. Indeed, taxes in most of these countries are not sufficiently adapted to the specificity of the taxpayer and often do not consider the weak administrative capacity of the countries in the region. In this context, reforms have been initiated over the last decade to create tax environments that encourage savings, investment, entrepreneurship, and social innovation. This study provides an overview of research on the effects of taxation on social innovation and the corresponding implications for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in developing countries, taking three approaches: thematic, chronological, and methodological. Most studies agree that high taxes in business undermine social innovation and thus the achievement of SDGs, as social innovation is known to be a driver of most SDGs and business the vehicle. The majority of the selected studies used primary data collected from samples whose representativeness with respect to the population concerned (notably businesses) is still not explicitly justified.     

Gaining from interactions with universities: Multiple methods for nurturing absorptive capacity

This paper examines the various methods through which firms benefit from interactions with universities, arguing that such benefits are instrumental in nurturing the multiple facets of a firm's absorptive capacity. We bring together data collected from a survey of UK firms that collaborated with universities, and firm-level data on past partnerships with universities. The results show that benefits from interactions with universities are multifaceted, including enhancement of the firm's explorative and exploitative capabilities. Results also indicate that firms’ R&D commitments, geographical proximity to and research quality of university partners have a distinct impact on the different types of benefits from interactions with universities. We find geographical proximity is crucial for assessing problem-solving as an important benefit, while interactions with top quality universities have a positive influence on the benefits associated with firms’ downstream activities. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and policy.     

大力发展科技事业为西藏经济社会跨越式发展提供强大科技支撑

改革开放30年来,西藏高度重视科技工作,科技事业快速发展,取得了丰硕的成果.2007年科技对农牧业发展贡献率达到了36%,科技对经济增长贡献率达到了29%.西藏科技事业在新的历史起点上实现了新的跨越,为西藏的经济社会发展发挥了重要的支撑作用.     

National innovation systems, capabilities and economic development

This paper focuses on the role of capabilities in economic development. In recent years, the quality and availability of data on different aspects of development have improved, and this provides new opportunities for investigating the reasons behind the large differences in economic development. Using factor analysis on data for 25 indicators and 115 countries between 1992 and 2004, we identify four different types of “capabilities”: the development of the “innovation system”, the quality of “governance”, the character of the “political system” and the degree of “openness” of the economy. Innovation systems and governance are shown to be of particular importance for economic development.     

Public science and public innovation: Assessing the relationship between patenting at U.S. National Laboratories and the Bayh-Dole Act

Most studies of the effects of the Bayh-Dole Act have focused on universities. In contrast, we analyze patenting activity at two prominent national laboratories, Sandia National Laboratories and the National Institute of Standards and Technology before and after the enactment of this legislation and the Stevenson-Wydler Act. It appears as though the enactment of Bayh-Dole and the Stevenson-Wydler Act were not sufficient to induce an increase in patenting at these labs. However, the establishment of financial incentive systems, embodied in passage of the Federal Technology Transfer Act, as well as the allocation of internal resources to support technology transfer, stimulated an increase in such activity.     

The science/technology relationship,the craft of experimental science,and policy for the improvement of high technology innovation

The author argues that advances in instrumentation and experimental techniques - what he calls instrumentalities - have been of major importance in stimulating and enabling both radical theoretical advances in fundamental science, and radical innovations in practical application. He supports his argument with historical examples, and concludes that explicit policies should be developed for the financial support of instrumentation.     

Innovation and Employment: a Reinvestigation using Revised Pavitt classes

The relationship between innovation and employment is addressed in this article through a model and empirical test at industry level for eight European countries in 1994-2004. We investigate this relationship for manufacturing and services and propose a Revised Pavitt taxonomy (covering both of them) in order to identify specific patterns of technological change and job creation and loss. The contrasting effects of strategies of technological or cost competitiveness are investigated using innovation variables from CIS2 and CIS3. Together with demand, wages and industry dynamics, they account for changes in employees and hours worked. The diversity in these relations across industries is also explored; when the model is applied to each Revised Pavitt class, different mechanisms of technological change and effects on jobs emerge.     

Innovation, regional knowledge spillovers and R&D cooperation

We investigate the impact of knowledge spillovers and R&D cooperation on innovation activities in three German regions. We begin by estimating the knowledge-production function in order to test for interregional difference with regard to the efficiency of innovation activities. In a second step, we analyze the contribution of spillovers from R&D effort of other private firms and of public research institutions to explain these differences. The inclusion of variables for R&D cooperation in the model indicates that R&D cooperation is only of relatively minor importance as a medium for knowledge spillover.