MIT and Harvard Leaders Make Policy Recommendations for the Next US President

Technology Review is running an article today
comprised of three letters to the next US president, suggesting policy
initiatives that they think are needed to address future challenges.

First up is Ernest J. Moniz, Director of The MIT Energy Initiative,
who argues for plans to develop a "portfolio of proven low-carbon
technologies". His specific proposals include:

Should America Create Innovation Zones to Spur R&D?

I spent the morning reading through a report released earlier this month by the Association of University Research Parks (AURP), titled “The Power of Place: A National Strategy for Building America’s Communities of Innovation”. AURP is industry association that represents several dozen leading research parks and real estate developers with strong connections to major universities in the US and Canada.

How to Attract US R&D Outsourcing

A recent article in Research Policy landed on my desk today, titled "The Maturation of Global Corporate R&D: Evidence From the Activity of U.S. Foreign Subsidiaries", by Deepak Hegde and Diana Hicks.

This review turned a lot of my assumptions about the globalization of R&D, and how poorly the current debate about offshoring of R&D in the US is based on fact.

Innovation in Africa: "Inside Nairobi, the Next Palo Alto?"

Interesting article describing the innovation capacity of Africa. Mobile devices may be the vehicle by which the African continent can flex it's innovation muscle. More than home electronics/computers/cars, mobile devices are in the hands of many people in the African continent and they are teaching the Western world how to innovate with these devices.

Article from NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/business/worldbusiness/20ping.html?ex=...

New Program Announcement: Science in Place

The global map of science and technology innovation is changing quickly. But it’s not just macroeconomics and demographics that is driving this tectonic shift in how scientific collaboration is organized globally, regionally, in cities and within buildings. Everywhere we turn, new structures are challenging the way research organizations create and apply new knowledge, and where they do it.

Mercosur Announces Science, Technology and Innovation Plan

From SciDev.Net today, we learn that "the presidents of the Mercosur member countries have signed a five-year plan for science, technology and innovation, aiming to add value to regional production. Not many details yet, but with Brazil's rapid advances in aviation manufacturing and biofuel, and Argentina's burgeoning expat fashionability, there are some interesting possible futures for attracting R&D money and talent to the region.

[Spanish full text only]
http://www.scidev.net/es/news/presidentes-del-mercosur-firman-plan-de-cy...

New report on the U.S. innovation system

The Institute does quite a bit of work these days on the future of innovation and innovation systems. So I was interested to see a report by the Information Technology and Innovation Forum (ITIF) on the U.S. innovation system. (It also caught my eye because long ago I took a sociology of work class with one of the report's authors.) From the press release:

OCED on Innovation in China

OCED Observer is running a good piece this month assessing the state of innovation in China:

Read more >

Post-scientific society

I've been in Malaysia and Singapore this week, conducting workshops on the future of science and innovation. It's been a very interesting week, talking to scientists in Penang and Kuala Lumpur about the future of science, and what role they see Malaysia playing in that future. The people I've been talking to are pretty convinced that Malaysia, which has a respectable but not world-class scientific community, can evolve into a global player in science in the next couple decades. They don't want to emulate American and European institutions: you won't see multi-billion dollar particle accelerators here any time soon. But they're pretty aware that cloud computing, cheap genomics, and other inexpensive research tools will lower the economic bars to develop world-class competence in some important fields. So I was especially struck by Gregg Zachary's latest column in the New York Times, which asks, "might cheap science from low-wage countries help keep American innovators humming?"