"We should increase the capacity to innovate because concept of wealth and poverty is changing all over the world. We should foster the culture of creativity. The role of media is crucial because the people have right to know. This right to know comes from our basic right of freedom of expression. Therefore journalists must try to understabnd complex, critical IPR issues in order to educate people by seperating news with views. This will definitely lead towards the upgradation of knowledge." These were the guding remarks by N.R. Madhavan Menon, founder Director of National Law School, Bhopal narrated the contemporary situation in brief. He was speaking at one day seminar organised by FICCI and DIPP in New Delhi yesterday.
Seminar started with welcome remarks by fresh Controller Geenral of Indian Patents Office P.H. Courian who narrated the progress of the Indian Patent Office. He expresses his concern that despite increase in patent filing (35, 000 last year) 80% of it was from abroad. Still it is happy development that patents filing is growing at 20%, TradeMarks at 40 % with Geographical Indications reaching 110 mark.
Continueing his very learned guidance on this issue, Dr. Nair said, "IPRs are crucial because it`s effect on scale of knowledge economy, growth and distribution of technology and it`s relation to Law and Jurisprudence. Therefore it should be remembered that IPRs with power of ICT are going to rewrite the rules of Justice in coming days. That is why the post DOHA round TRIPS negotiations are very crucial. Considering the fact that legislation as expression of public opinion, journlaist should try to evolve a debate around how IPRs can serve people`s interests. The competitive scenario after product patent regime came into force, it is compulsory for us to look ahead to the creating the mechanism of granting Utlitiy Patents. This should be done in the national interest."
" You may remember a line from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolostoy that "Happy home does not make story but broken home does !!! "Journalists are oftent found to make pitch to the editor with her reported story and sometimes due to biased sources or due to pressures of market they try to sell their story without understanding basics of Intellectual Property Rights." This was well judged observation of Pravin Anand, Managing Partner, Anand & Anand.
In his talk Mr. Pravin Anand said, "Sometimes very tall claims are made without considering the implications of the news on judiciary and policy makers. The content regulators have great responsibility because after the brainwash effect of media, people do not want to study on their due to established credibility of media platforms." He suggested new age of Innovation Journalism is needed with spotlight on success stories across the rural-urban areas.
He continued, "The children hold great potential so we should reach out for schools in a search of new ideas just like Anil Gupta has discovered six lakh ideas by his grass roots innovations. Unless and untill we respect the creative attitude and inventors there will not be a incentive to people who are coming out with new ideas. So job of Innovation Journalism is to communicate the steps between Protection, Branding, Marketing and Tie ups for greater commercialisation benefits. Eventhough many media houses lack seperate cell on Science-Technology houses, the need to write more and more on IPR issues will force them to create some kind of specialised team in coming days at the level of association of media houses."
Many issues were discussed in this seminar. One of the rare presentations was by Alka Chawla on Copyright issues. Teaching IPR in Delhi University. Alka focussed her talk on copyright issues. "Journalist are creators of their own work. Therefore it is very necessary to realise while entering into any kind of agreement following issues: a) Time Period of Agreement, b)Territory of execution c)Medium of operation ....."
She cited famous cases Anil Gupta V Kunal Dasgupta (2002), Indian Express Group V Dr Jagmohan (1985). In copyright issues of Journalist, she said many times it is not literary merit or quality of work which matters but the quantum of the work published. Ownership is on expression of ideas. In case of Journalist is in full contract then their will be split copyright of both employee and employer. In other then newspaper print media, copyright rests with the employer alone.
She expressed her concern over Section 17 of the Copyright Act being very descriminatory making Employer the first copyright owner. She appealed all the Journalistic Community to move forward for repealing of this section 17 because it is responsible for violating Right to Equality inherent in Article 14. So basically many times copyrights issues in media and publishing industry is one element of power equation in influencing opinions and market shares.
Dr. Vidya Sagar in another very forward looking presentation visualised why IP Journalism is the call of the future. Therefore to become proficient in IP related issues, a curious journalist should always keep her eyes on market developments, ongoing pathbreaking research in various fields, legislative developments(amendments), international conventions regarding technology & IPR, judicial pronouncements, implications of IPRs on specialised beats or niche areas of reporting, major controversies in patentability issues and much much more...
Eventually, there was a presentation on Commercial Aspects of IPRs in sport. This was given by Pratibha Singh. Players/athletes, manufactureres , proffessional leagues, teams, governing bodies, sport event organisors, broadcasters are involved in the game of sports using different IPRs for proffessional contracts, agreements. Players have right to publicity with their name, personality and likeness having some value associated with it. There may be conflicts between player`s brand and team`s brand. She referred to many controverses in broadcasting related issues. She also explained how ambush marketing and overriding of trademarks happens during the competitive world of sports.
Some of the cases referred by her are:
Tolley Vs. Fry (1931)
Edmund Irvine & Ors Vs Talksport Ltd (2003)
ESPN Star sports vs. Global Broadcast News Ltd (2008)
ICC Development Vs. Evergreen Service
Seven Network Vs. News Interactive
This seminar was very significant in recognising the importance of Journalist and their capactity to influence the course of Policy making.
=======================================================================
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
We are dealing with the world which is less literate in science
Background:
Last night Vijay Jawandhiya, the leader of Farmers Movement in Vidarbha was in JNU for an informal interaction with students. He along with Hon. Proffessor of . Economcs Utsa Patnaik described various reasons behind current plight of the farmers and the policy of successive governments being responsible for it.
A to Z reasons of agriculture crisis listed by Utsa Patnaik and Vijay Javandhiya last night:
a) Food Procurement Policy
b) Import and Export Duty Structures
c) Farm Credit Policies
d) Availability of wage labour to farmers
e) Class and caste divisions in farmer’s struggle movement
f) When actually suicides started and why only after entry to WTO
g) Pricing Mechanism
h) Regional disparity
i) Bias towards non-irrigated farmers
j) Flawed norms of farmer’s debt relief package
k) High ignorance of leadership about international trade patterns and provisions in treaties
l) Reversal of social contract between farmers & government which was functional upto 1990
m) No lobbying, pressure group of farmers in national policy making institutions
n) Collapse of farmer’s leadership in national political framework
o) Much needed Government intervention to protect domestic production is lacking
p) No solidarity in farmer’s community about the issues of each other
q) Capital supply in agriculture is decreasing
r) Refusal to understand that the suicides are not 'only crisis' but 'symptom of larger crisis'
s) No educated youth want to move towards agriculture
t) Subsidies given in developed world damaging the competitiveness of our farm products
u) Agriculture is state subject but all the major decisions are taken by central governments
v) Despite enormous manpower, why industrialisation of farming by GM-Biotech happening
w) Farmers are selling lands and investing in less valuable, perishable commodities
x) Rich farmers are not building physical capital out of agriculture earning
y) Bias towards unorganised class of labour and farmers
z) Lack of informed decision making
Scene cuts here...
...12 hours later
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Challenges before Biotechnology and the world are increasing and so seem the opportunities. Amidst fierce resistance across the continents as well as volume of gradually increasing success stories, the debate about viability of biotechnology as an efficient alternative to contribute to the problems of the world is entering into meaningful interaction of University level.
The venue was School of Life Sciences in Jawaharlal Nehru University and the person speaking was Clive James, Chairman and Founder of ISAAA; a organisation claiming itself a not-for-profit organization delivering the benefits of new agricultural biotechnologies to the poor in developing countries.
In a desent way of engaging humour coupled with his assertive takes on oppositions to Biotechnology, James tried to project the development agenda dominated by Biotech experiements being done across the world. According to him, public interest in biotech arrives because of a) It`s potential to provide affordable food, feed and fibre; b) It`s strength to mitigate climate change & c) To ensure global food security and hunger reduction.
He was emphasising on the need to understand difference between 'contribution' and 'solution.' Explaining it a bit further, "We have to promote knowledge based decision making. But at the same time we should remember that person in front of us has every right to take their own decision. Here word 'contribution' differes from solution".
While submitting that, Biotech is not golden bullet but at the same time he asserted the advancements done due to biotechnology all over the world during last few years due to Biotech crops:
a) Food security has achieved by increase in production of 32 million tonnes
b) Biodiversity Conservation by saving forests to the tune of 10 million hectres
c) Alleviation of poverty by empowering life of 12.3 million farmers, 90% being marginal farmers
d) Mitigation of Cliamte Change, GHG & reduction of Environmental footprint by decreasing use of pesticides by 77,000 Metric Tonn
e) More effective biofuels- 12.2 miliion Hectres in US in 08
f) Sustainable economic benefits of $ 10 billion to developing and developing countries` farmers
He presented the voyage from entry of commercial biotech industries in past, linking towards achievement of Milleium Development Goals throgh the current growth across the world. Adoption around 1996, it`s impact in contemporary world leading towards future upto 2015.
It was mandatory for him to discuss the arguments which in principle responsible for opposition of Biotech.
1) Food Safety, Labeling and Tracebility of threats
2) Gene flow, conservation of Biodiversity and Coexistence
3) Effect of non-target organisms citing example of Monarch Butterfly
4) Management of BT resistance when durability is in question
5) Restricted access and control of GM technology
6) Role of private sector and issues of IPRs
7) Ethical Considerations
8) Impact of international Trade
Although he highlighted the grey areas, his obvious emphasis on achievements and progress of Biotech agriculture was insulated from any serious discussion in detail on the criticism of this techology. He tried to visualise the future opportunites in Rice crop because majority of worlds poor population are living on rice as a dietary habit. These new varities which will drought resistant, high quality in yield, speedy breeding, faster response to more severe and rapid change are undergoing research and development in colloboration of Monsoanto, The African Agriculture Technology Foundation (AATF), The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation etc.
"When the world is drowned in information and starving of knowledge", Jones persisted by saying that future needs to have continous e flow of new and improved biotech crops with informed political will and support. Expressing concern over the complacency to oppose biotech he said, "We are dealing with the world which is less literate in science."
PostScript: France banned genetically modified crops recently.
====================================================================
Monday, February 16, 2009
Be ashamed to die if you do not work for victory of Humanity
In a stunned silence of packed auditorium Martin Luther King III was delievering his extempore speech full with reflective inherited character of reasoned committment. A committment to make this workd more peaceful, worthwhile to live with dignity, self respect and confidence.
He said that the values discovered by Henry David Thaoreau, Gandhi, Martin Luther King are not to be remembered only in the form of ceremonial services but we should go through the experiences of those thoughts.
In the last phase of his India`s 'Pilgrimage', today King III was in JNU to propagate that message of Love which in increasingly becoming subject to extreme violence and oppresssion.
In short he explained THE SIX STEPS OF NONVIOLENCE originally propounded by Martin Luther King Jr.
- STEP ONE: Information Gathering
- Information gathering is not simply a fact-finding process, but must relate to a specific context, people and place.
- Dr. King believed in listening and respecting the opinions of other people, whether they were poor people, uneducated or of a different color.
- STEP TWO: Education
- Nonviolence's use of all available communications and media to educate the public about the issue or injustice at hand.
- Education can mean helping people to realize their ability to effect change and to act on solving major social problems.
- Like holding a mirror up to the community, nonviolent approaches to education reveal the unique situation and reflect the need for a better and just image.
- STEP THREE: Personal Commitment
- Self-examination of all the ways that one may have helped to perpetuate a problem or unjust situation or where one has failed to use the nonviolent approach.
- Developing spiritual and intellectual habits fosters nonviolence by dealing with one's own emotions or lack of understanding the truth.
- STEP FOUR: Negotiation
- Nonviolent negotiation does not humiliate or defeat your opponent.
- To prepare for negotiation, Dr. King always stressed the importance of learning about your opponents: their religious traditions, personal traditions, personal or business histories, and educational background.
- Nonviolence always allows your opponents to save face and "winning your opponent over" allows for joint responsibility in correcting the problem.
- STEP FIVE: Direct Action
- This step has two meanings: the first, to take responsibility for doing something about the situation and not waiting for someone else to do it; and the second, to take direct action when all attempts at education, personal commitment, and negotiation have failed to resolve the problem, and more dramatic measures are necessary.
- This step has two meanings: the first, to take responsibility for doing something about the situation and not waiting for someone else to do it; and the second, to take direct action when all attempts at education, personal commitment, and negotiation have failed to resolve the problem, and more dramatic measures are necessary.
- STEP SIX: Reconciliation
- The goal of nonviolence is a reconciled world so that we can move forward together to tackle the larger issues we confront as a community.
- This step grows naturally out of Dr. King's belief that we focus not on persons but on conditions and if the issues remain clear throughout the process, reconciliation will facilitate the feeling of joint accomplishment and enhance acceptance of the change.
He recited the excerpts of the speec delievered by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1957
If it falls your lot to sweep streets in life, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures. Sweep streets like Beethoven composed music. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper, who swept his job well.'"
Next lines which were not recited today were even more inspiring:
If you can't be a pine on the top of the hill
Be a shrub in the valley, but be
the best shrub on the side of the hill.
Be a bush if you can't be a tree.
If you can't be a highway, just be a trail.
If you can't be the sun be a star;
It isn't by size that you win or you fail.
Be the best of whatever you are.
And when you do that [applause],
...... when you do that, you're ready for the new age. (Yes)
============================================================================
Thursday, February 12, 2009
A Faithful Recorder- Meticulous Charles Darwin(1809-1882)
What we owe to Charles Darwin? Everything...
He has spend his invaluable five years of his young life on a lonely floating ship called Beagle investigating the roots of human evolution. (1831-1836) (http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/dn16574-darwin-adventures)
What extraordinary Darwing did to uncover the evolution as a uncompromisable process shaping the human life experienced today? This was revealed during a seminar organised by School of Information Technology to mark the celebration of Darwin`s 200th birthday today.
As one quotation of Darwin still linegers in my memory says, "Whatever I did I did for my pleasure coming out of investigation and strong desire to add facts to scientific knowledge." Really, Darwin got no financial or other incentives to travel on ocean expeditioin to search the 'Origin of Evolution of Species'. Among the massive documentation he did which is avaialble in 12 volumes today some are: Field notebooks, Beagle Diary, Zoological diary, geological diary, Catalouge of Specimens and many more...
Much of the popular terms attributed to Darwin are actually inherited from great scientists who worked on evolution many years before Darwin. Consider some of the cases:
A)Linnaus who founded the biological classification system for the first time said that humans have been descended from animal ancestors. (around 1735) Interestingly European Union hascome out with special issue on "Humanity-Animality" in November 'research EU' edition (http://ec.europa.eu/research/research-eu/index_en.html)
B) In certain ages due to some catostrophic event some strong specis got vanished. This observation about abrupt change was first noted by Cuvier.
C) Malthus coined term 'Struggle for Existence' who propouded 'Principle of Population'.
D) Herbert spencer has guided the explanation behind the landmark 'Survival of the Fittest'
E) Alfred Russel Wallace was his contemporary. It was after his work on Natural Selection that Darwin realised importance of his work and he started discussing it openly.
So one obvious question have to arise in our mind is what Darwin did unique so as to force coming ages to credit him for it? His meticulous observations of thousands of species with careful notes and persistence to establesh the already pronounced links between various possibilities made his work the monumental and authentic among all. (www.aboutdarwin.com)
The reasons of evolution: 1) Mutation 2) Migration 3)Genetic Drift 4) Nonrandom mating 5) Selction
All these reasons of evolution were and are still guided by Variation which means: "No two individuals of given species are alike and secondly by Culling which means: "Elimination of weaker members of community during the course of co-existence or competetition."
The evidences to study evolution: 1)Fossils 2)Anatomical studies 3)Molecular microstudies
No doubt, a rare and true icon for researchers. Experts speaking at the seminar said that it was the age when people entering into the scientific research were coming due to sheer passion of it and not due to any financial motivation or any other materialistic inspiration. As one Proffessor urged,"We should never complain about scarcity of the resources as long as we are matching the committment need from the rogorous, evidence oriented research with painstaking efforts."
It was communicated during the seminar that JNU will be hosting the International Seminar in coming September to celebrate 150 years of Theory of Evolution.
Eventually to conculde, Charles Darwin’s ideas have spread widely, but his revolution is not yet complete. (http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13059028)
He has spend his invaluable five years of his young life on a lonely floating ship called Beagle investigating the roots of human evolution. (1831-1836) (http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/dn16574-darwin-adventures)
What extraordinary Darwing did to uncover the evolution as a uncompromisable process shaping the human life experienced today? This was revealed during a seminar organised by School of Information Technology to mark the celebration of Darwin`s 200th birthday today.
As one quotation of Darwin still linegers in my memory says, "Whatever I did I did for my pleasure coming out of investigation and strong desire to add facts to scientific knowledge." Really, Darwin got no financial or other incentives to travel on ocean expeditioin to search the 'Origin of Evolution of Species'. Among the massive documentation he did which is avaialble in 12 volumes today some are: Field notebooks, Beagle Diary, Zoological diary, geological diary, Catalouge of Specimens and many more...
Much of the popular terms attributed to Darwin are actually inherited from great scientists who worked on evolution many years before Darwin. Consider some of the cases:
A)Linnaus who founded the biological classification system for the first time said that humans have been descended from animal ancestors. (around 1735) Interestingly European Union hascome out with special issue on "Humanity-Animality" in November 'research EU' edition (http://ec.europa.eu/research/research-eu/index_en.html)
B) In certain ages due to some catostrophic event some strong specis got vanished. This observation about abrupt change was first noted by Cuvier.
C) Malthus coined term 'Struggle for Existence' who propouded 'Principle of Population'.
D) Herbert spencer has guided the explanation behind the landmark 'Survival of the Fittest'
E) Alfred Russel Wallace was his contemporary. It was after his work on Natural Selection that Darwin realised importance of his work and he started discussing it openly.
So one obvious question have to arise in our mind is what Darwin did unique so as to force coming ages to credit him for it? His meticulous observations of thousands of species with careful notes and persistence to establesh the already pronounced links between various possibilities made his work the monumental and authentic among all. (www.aboutdarwin.com)
The reasons of evolution: 1) Mutation 2) Migration 3)Genetic Drift 4) Nonrandom mating 5) Selction
All these reasons of evolution were and are still guided by Variation which means: "No two individuals of given species are alike and secondly by Culling which means: "Elimination of weaker members of community during the course of co-existence or competetition."
The evidences to study evolution: 1)Fossils 2)Anatomical studies 3)Molecular microstudies
No doubt, a rare and true icon for researchers. Experts speaking at the seminar said that it was the age when people entering into the scientific research were coming due to sheer passion of it and not due to any financial motivation or any other materialistic inspiration. As one Proffessor urged,"We should never complain about scarcity of the resources as long as we are matching the committment need from the rogorous, evidence oriented research with painstaking efforts."
It was communicated during the seminar that JNU will be hosting the International Seminar in coming September to celebrate 150 years of Theory of Evolution.
Eventually to conculde, Charles Darwin’s ideas have spread widely, but his revolution is not yet complete. (http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13059028)
Saturday, February 7, 2009
New directions to Design and Evaluation of INNOVATION POLICIES in Developing Countries
New commendable reflections of initiatives regarding comprehemsive innovation policiies were felt in just concluded Training Course jointly offered by UNU_MERIT,Netherlands, NISTADS, New Delhi and CDS, Trivandrum.
A significant number of stakeholders including subject experts, research scholars, industry representatives, independent organisations and government represenatives were brainstorming for six days about various probablities, models and frameworks to understand products, processes and practises of inmovation linkages. Delegates shared work-experiences regarding their perceptions and recent work done about the emerging patterns of innovation vis-a-vis prevalent concepts in this field of Innovation Studies. They also tried to build a more mature approach towards complex web of conventional, non-conventional performance indicators to measure the innovative activities across the university labs, industry firms and Govt. sponsored research institutes with the additional effort to understand the implications of the constituent factors leading towards Innovation.
The discussions went around the core elemetns of economic development, S&T human resource development , R&D leading to product development, how invention gets channelised towards successful commercialisation and what are the secrets behind world renowned success stories of Asian export orineted manufacturing hubs with innovation as a significant contributing catalyst.
FIRST PHASE:
In a competitive technology race, it is increasingly realised that being a developing society has some inherent advantages helping to leap frog. This rapid catch up is possible due to rapid technological diffusion & absorption. This opportunity has been given by changes in technology.
S&T policies play a major role in fostering absorptive capacities of individuals, firms, sectors and national economies in the second wave of globalisation. Goal of any pragmatic S&T policy should be to understand the increasing dynamism of techno-managerial economics of development. Thus it becomes mandatory to have substantial Knowledge and Physical infrastructure to move towards primary stepping stones of country`s R&D planns having realistic targets.
New industries like, IT, BT or Knowledge orineted manufacturing industries are creating more and more opportunities of learning by giving attractive incentives for research projects so as to enhance their human capital. This human capital is essential in building synergistic relationships & networks between actors.
In globalised knowledge economy, R&D activities are increasingly mobile and interconected. This is evident from ascending availability of codified knowledge in the form of various information sources. The diverse interpretations of the Innovation term were observed in recent days ranging from:
i) Economic exploitation of new research ideas
ii)Capability to expoit new combinations of pieces of knolwedge
iii)Complex combination of distributed knowledge sources across a set of agents
& institutions
The thin-very subtle but gradually visible distinction between R&D and innovation was
underscored during this debate leading towards classification of firm specific, sector
specific and generic innovation outputs.
Need of Attitudinal Change:
Any ambitious organisation in this era should move:
a) From raising resources towards promoting change,
b) From best practises to context specific planning,
c) From standard policy making to better learning processes...
SECOND PHASE:
A) Innovation Policies: European Expeirience
The disussions were centred around to visualise new innovation policy approaches by accomodating both traditional and new contributory factors. Some key lacunaes were identified which were responsible for imepediments in achieving innovation success. These deficiencies are:
a) Providing support to firms in isolation rather than networking vested stakeholders
b) Immature policy instruments seeking organisational changes
c) Lack of strategic approach to policy system
The fresh European experiences indicates influence of following actors on Innovation
activities in descending order of influence:
1) Input sources
2) HRM behavioural patterns
3) Linkages and networks
4) Systemic instruments of cluster
Nurturing SCIENCE PARK:
This suggest that there must be conscious efforts directed at dialouge
creation having multilateral exchanges with multiple learning support bridged
by material in-house support sterngthened due to narrow technoloy gap in
different firms operating in a perticular cluster.
There has to be mature realisation about the needs of the SMSEs firms aiming at the
innovation goals. These needs can be addressed by:
a) Raising innovation awaremess by periodic mentoring
b) Suggesting ways of technological diffusion to find new innovation opportunities
c) Providing exposure to novel ways of research commercialisation
INNOVATION POLICY--> Way ahead
Effectiveness of innovation systems depends on clarity on the balanced combination of:
i) Creation of knowledge
ii) Diffusion of knowledge
iii) Absorption of knowledge
In this situation, government`s role is changing from investor, regulator to
catalystic facilitator by promoting:
a) PPP & Interface Management
b)Improvement in knowledge governance in firms & clusters
c) Openness between traditional fields of policy intervention and
modern forms of knowledge production-diffusion
Thus, new Policy Packages can be introduced by emphasising:
i) Demand oriented innovation policies
ii)Inducing more public procurement of resources and capital
iii)Shaping more contemporary relevant regulatory norms
iv)Stimulating articulation of needs
These Policy Packages can be supported by Strategic Intelligence like:
a) Monitoring & evaluation of policies
b) Sound analysis of innovation systems
c) Intelligent benchmarkiing practises
d) Foresight Planning
e)Inclusive policy design process
B)Financial instruments to support innovation
Market supports the process of commercialisation of technology by raising money throogh:
Equity, Debt and Venture Capital Funds.
Innovation efforts may fail because of:
i) Failure in creation and maintenence of legal environment conducive to private
sector investment in innovative activities
ii) Lack of power to appropriate fruits of R&D patents & relaxation of anti-trust
activities
To stimulate the innovation processes these are the strongly effective financial
measures:
a) Subsidising exchange of R&D personnel between private and public organisations
b) Tax incentives for R&D, Direct Funding Grants, Joint Coperative R&D Projects
c)Creation of specialised market mechanisms with occassional help of Venture Capital
Optimal Administration of Grants:
MATTHEW Effect is observed predominatly in the allocation of Research grants in various
S&T R&D projects. This Matthew effect is visible in accumulative advantage gained by
scientists due to autonomy & effectiveness with less efficient monitoring amethods
assessing accountability & efficiency. The Gatekeepers embedded in Govt. officials and
Peer review cadres administer the processes of finalising the research grants.
C)Educational Policies to foster Innovation
The contexts related to education are changing with refernce to innovation. Various skill based technologies are contributing towards economical growth. Knowledge has become a source of competetive advantage. new opportunities of educational innovation are given by emergence of global market inherent in Brain Gain and Brain Drain. Therefore significance of skill based vocational education has increased like never before.
The economic effects of higher education contributes to the demands of R&D in various sectors.
The increasing availibility of educational opportunities help to debate the new ideas of
growth and development. Howver, culture of lifelong learning must be encouraged across all
dissciplines of education.
Scholars criticise argument of educated HR inducing innovation as it`s uneasy to measure:
i) marginal productivity
ii) Work satisfaction, social status and intrinsic emplyement
iii) Cost-Benefit analysis of education
iv) Tacit knowledge gained on the job
Relevant questions must be asked about validity of education as a input for innovation:
i) Is development is not possible without education?
ii) What is immediate corelation between level of education and innovation
iii) How to analyse link between Consumption of education and Degree of prosperity
iv) What are real complements of education in physical, technological terms
v) How countries investing in education gain from knowledge assets accumulation?
Problems of education in developing countries:
a)Discrepencies between educational requirements & available financial instruments
b)Low quality & Unequal access of education
c)Lack of relevance with reference to sectors e.g. Agriculture
d) Too academic, little practical & proffessional exposure
e) Insufficient attention for non-formal education
f) Regional, social and gender disparities in education
g) Mismatch between education and labour market
D)Clusters
Regional dimensions of innovation can be described by indicating tacit knowledge which is geographically concentrated in specific regions leading to spillovers. The agents carrying this tacit knowledge is called Social Capital. This capital constitutes implicit regional advantage for innovation plans.
The cluster is mode of organisation of productive system, characterised by geographical
concentration of critical mass of economic actors and other organisations specialised in common activity developing inter-relations of market nature contributing to competitiveness of it`s members and territory.
Benefits of clusters are:
a) Increased productivity
b) Specialisation of factors
c) Economies of scale (Labour, R&D, Technology, Capital)
d) Time-Cost savings & Just in Time Practises
e) Collective learning
f) Access to Market
g) Image of attractiveness of territory
h) Knowledge spillovers and Technology information
Clustes have some inherent features. It has diversity of instruments borrowed from tailor
made mix of instuctive policies. Thre are various entry points in idealised sequence for
policy design by mapping, selecting and initiating innovation activities leading towards
growth. clusters are means of the larger goal therefore there has to be critical
evaluation of them.
THIRD PHASE:
A) Impact of IPRs on Innovation: Background
IPRs gives incentives on letting others to make, buy and copy certain technology. Patent reduces information assymetry between inventor and market helping to avoid the reinvention of wheel. Patents make markets more mature. Despite this, there are some disadvantages of monopoly. There is no guarantee that diffusion of knowledge will happen as per expectations. Thus IPRs are increasingly becoming tradeoff between invention, innovation and diffusion. Therefore, we should never look towards IPRs in isolation.
Even if it is highly regarded form of codified knowledge, there are many tacit elements in patent documents. This creates technological gap between competitors. This regime favours creation of Temporary monopoly because it is believed that R&D time and invention investment is sure to yield a some amount of payback.
Impact of IPR Regime:
a) Possibility to increase Capacity to absorb technological knowledge
b) New business models and investment proposals
c) Establishment of Linkages in innovation model
d) Greater acces to technological know-how
e) Motivation for enterprenurship
f) Better visualisation of market conditions and demand
g) Growing interaction between International Political Economies
h) Test of Risk taking attitude
Modifications in IP regime may be introduced looking at emerging changes in technologies and
shifting patterns global structure of industry. The strategies of multinational firms must
be studies in order to understand their influence on policy domain in international
treaties and fora. This will help to evolve capabilties and strategies of Indian Firms.
Therefore, the strategic options available with Indian Research Firms are:
a) To exploit relatively less expensive research skills
b) Outsourcing, subcontracting of R&D activities to universties and other institutions
c) Establishing R&D consortia and Looking for joint R&D projects
d) Focussing on new use patents
e) Developing new process patents by optimisationn and new performance mechanisms
Therefore there is more need of partnership between public sector, industry and R&D
institutions. This is transition phase where shift from less to more complex, more risky
and investment intensive innovation will be the challenge ahead of Indian industries.
B) Rural Innovation
Ten Commandments of Rural Innovation:
i) Invention is not compulsory for innovation
ii) Transfer of technology not necessary promotes innovation
iii) Inventions/modifications by rural pepole are not inherently superior to scientific one
iv) Training is not enough for innovative capacity building
v) There are no lessons learnt by some successful exaamples
vi) NGOs are tail-end disseminators of innovative practises
vii)schematising kills new innovative initiatives
viii)This is particilatory technology development
ix)Private sector involvement & profits are necessary for pro-poor innovation
x) New investments are needed, new ways of working expected
In rural innovation practsies, linear flow of technology is observed where mandates are compartmentalised and there is specific lack of recognising beneficiaries in a evaluation mechanism. Problem about any policy is, it is not enforceble like laws.
So, how to enable Rural Innovation...?
a) By building coalition of actors from different domains
b) By acknoledgeing benefits & stakes of all actors
c) By learning from every technology, process and context
d) By highlighting impediments in converting good idea into product in economy.
C) S&T Infrastructure:
There should be efficient interoperability in S&T infrastructure.
i) Labs, workshops, planetaria, extension center, science club
ii) Data centres,animal house, germplasm, repositories, libraries, designs, museums, data
generators-collectors
iii)Journals, network of editors/peers, databases, proffessional societies
iv)Incubation park, S&T park, high-tech park, test house
v) Stock exchange for Start-ups, S&T parks, VC Managers, rating agents & their sydicates
vi) ICT backbone, Ecommerce set up, spot exchanges on elctronic trades
vii) Instrumentation intensity/ facility, availibility of equipments
viii) Rsearch institutes controlled by proffessionals, govt. administrators, banks/funds, local
legislatoes/societies, managers under non-profit mode and profit mode
ix) Institutes of standards, measures, quality, rule setting bodies, certifying authorities
x) Policy guidlines, leadership
A significant number of stakeholders including subject experts, research scholars, industry representatives, independent organisations and government represenatives were brainstorming for six days about various probablities, models and frameworks to understand products, processes and practises of inmovation linkages. Delegates shared work-experiences regarding their perceptions and recent work done about the emerging patterns of innovation vis-a-vis prevalent concepts in this field of Innovation Studies. They also tried to build a more mature approach towards complex web of conventional, non-conventional performance indicators to measure the innovative activities across the university labs, industry firms and Govt. sponsored research institutes with the additional effort to understand the implications of the constituent factors leading towards Innovation.
The discussions went around the core elemetns of economic development, S&T human resource development , R&D leading to product development, how invention gets channelised towards successful commercialisation and what are the secrets behind world renowned success stories of Asian export orineted manufacturing hubs with innovation as a significant contributing catalyst.
FIRST PHASE:
In a competitive technology race, it is increasingly realised that being a developing society has some inherent advantages helping to leap frog. This rapid catch up is possible due to rapid technological diffusion & absorption. This opportunity has been given by changes in technology.
S&T policies play a major role in fostering absorptive capacities of individuals, firms, sectors and national economies in the second wave of globalisation. Goal of any pragmatic S&T policy should be to understand the increasing dynamism of techno-managerial economics of development. Thus it becomes mandatory to have substantial Knowledge and Physical infrastructure to move towards primary stepping stones of country`s R&D planns having realistic targets.
New industries like, IT, BT or Knowledge orineted manufacturing industries are creating more and more opportunities of learning by giving attractive incentives for research projects so as to enhance their human capital. This human capital is essential in building synergistic relationships & networks between actors.
In globalised knowledge economy, R&D activities are increasingly mobile and interconected. This is evident from ascending availability of codified knowledge in the form of various information sources. The diverse interpretations of the Innovation term were observed in recent days ranging from:
i) Economic exploitation of new research ideas
ii)Capability to expoit new combinations of pieces of knolwedge
iii)Complex combination of distributed knowledge sources across a set of agents
& institutions
The thin-very subtle but gradually visible distinction between R&D and innovation was
underscored during this debate leading towards classification of firm specific, sector
specific and generic innovation outputs.
Need of Attitudinal Change:
Any ambitious organisation in this era should move:
a) From raising resources towards promoting change,
b) From best practises to context specific planning,
c) From standard policy making to better learning processes...
SECOND PHASE:
A) Innovation Policies: European Expeirience
The disussions were centred around to visualise new innovation policy approaches by accomodating both traditional and new contributory factors. Some key lacunaes were identified which were responsible for imepediments in achieving innovation success. These deficiencies are:
a) Providing support to firms in isolation rather than networking vested stakeholders
b) Immature policy instruments seeking organisational changes
c) Lack of strategic approach to policy system
The fresh European experiences indicates influence of following actors on Innovation
activities in descending order of influence:
1) Input sources
2) HRM behavioural patterns
3) Linkages and networks
4) Systemic instruments of cluster
Nurturing SCIENCE PARK:
This suggest that there must be conscious efforts directed at dialouge
creation having multilateral exchanges with multiple learning support bridged
by material in-house support sterngthened due to narrow technoloy gap in
different firms operating in a perticular cluster.
There has to be mature realisation about the needs of the SMSEs firms aiming at the
innovation goals. These needs can be addressed by:
a) Raising innovation awaremess by periodic mentoring
b) Suggesting ways of technological diffusion to find new innovation opportunities
c) Providing exposure to novel ways of research commercialisation
INNOVATION POLICY--> Way ahead
Effectiveness of innovation systems depends on clarity on the balanced combination of:
i) Creation of knowledge
ii) Diffusion of knowledge
iii) Absorption of knowledge
In this situation, government`s role is changing from investor, regulator to
catalystic facilitator by promoting:
a) PPP & Interface Management
b)Improvement in knowledge governance in firms & clusters
c) Openness between traditional fields of policy intervention and
modern forms of knowledge production-diffusion
Thus, new Policy Packages can be introduced by emphasising:
i) Demand oriented innovation policies
ii)Inducing more public procurement of resources and capital
iii)Shaping more contemporary relevant regulatory norms
iv)Stimulating articulation of needs
These Policy Packages can be supported by Strategic Intelligence like:
a) Monitoring & evaluation of policies
b) Sound analysis of innovation systems
c) Intelligent benchmarkiing practises
d) Foresight Planning
e)Inclusive policy design process
B)Financial instruments to support innovation
Market supports the process of commercialisation of technology by raising money throogh:
Equity, Debt and Venture Capital Funds.
Innovation efforts may fail because of:
i) Failure in creation and maintenence of legal environment conducive to private
sector investment in innovative activities
ii) Lack of power to appropriate fruits of R&D patents & relaxation of anti-trust
activities
To stimulate the innovation processes these are the strongly effective financial
measures:
a) Subsidising exchange of R&D personnel between private and public organisations
b) Tax incentives for R&D, Direct Funding Grants, Joint Coperative R&D Projects
c)Creation of specialised market mechanisms with occassional help of Venture Capital
Optimal Administration of Grants:
MATTHEW Effect is observed predominatly in the allocation of Research grants in various
S&T R&D projects. This Matthew effect is visible in accumulative advantage gained by
scientists due to autonomy & effectiveness with less efficient monitoring amethods
assessing accountability & efficiency. The Gatekeepers embedded in Govt. officials and
Peer review cadres administer the processes of finalising the research grants.
C)Educational Policies to foster Innovation
The contexts related to education are changing with refernce to innovation. Various skill based technologies are contributing towards economical growth. Knowledge has become a source of competetive advantage. new opportunities of educational innovation are given by emergence of global market inherent in Brain Gain and Brain Drain. Therefore significance of skill based vocational education has increased like never before.
The economic effects of higher education contributes to the demands of R&D in various sectors.
The increasing availibility of educational opportunities help to debate the new ideas of
growth and development. Howver, culture of lifelong learning must be encouraged across all
dissciplines of education.
Scholars criticise argument of educated HR inducing innovation as it`s uneasy to measure:
i) marginal productivity
ii) Work satisfaction, social status and intrinsic emplyement
iii) Cost-Benefit analysis of education
iv) Tacit knowledge gained on the job
Relevant questions must be asked about validity of education as a input for innovation:
i) Is development is not possible without education?
ii) What is immediate corelation between level of education and innovation
iii) How to analyse link between Consumption of education and Degree of prosperity
iv) What are real complements of education in physical, technological terms
v) How countries investing in education gain from knowledge assets accumulation?
Problems of education in developing countries:
a)Discrepencies between educational requirements & available financial instruments
b)Low quality & Unequal access of education
c)Lack of relevance with reference to sectors e.g. Agriculture
d) Too academic, little practical & proffessional exposure
e) Insufficient attention for non-formal education
f) Regional, social and gender disparities in education
g) Mismatch between education and labour market
D)Clusters
Regional dimensions of innovation can be described by indicating tacit knowledge which is geographically concentrated in specific regions leading to spillovers. The agents carrying this tacit knowledge is called Social Capital. This capital constitutes implicit regional advantage for innovation plans.
The cluster is mode of organisation of productive system, characterised by geographical
concentration of critical mass of economic actors and other organisations specialised in common activity developing inter-relations of market nature contributing to competitiveness of it`s members and territory.
Benefits of clusters are:
a) Increased productivity
b) Specialisation of factors
c) Economies of scale (Labour, R&D, Technology, Capital)
d) Time-Cost savings & Just in Time Practises
e) Collective learning
f) Access to Market
g) Image of attractiveness of territory
h) Knowledge spillovers and Technology information
Clustes have some inherent features. It has diversity of instruments borrowed from tailor
made mix of instuctive policies. Thre are various entry points in idealised sequence for
policy design by mapping, selecting and initiating innovation activities leading towards
growth. clusters are means of the larger goal therefore there has to be critical
evaluation of them.
THIRD PHASE:
A) Impact of IPRs on Innovation: Background
IPRs gives incentives on letting others to make, buy and copy certain technology. Patent reduces information assymetry between inventor and market helping to avoid the reinvention of wheel. Patents make markets more mature. Despite this, there are some disadvantages of monopoly. There is no guarantee that diffusion of knowledge will happen as per expectations. Thus IPRs are increasingly becoming tradeoff between invention, innovation and diffusion. Therefore, we should never look towards IPRs in isolation.
Even if it is highly regarded form of codified knowledge, there are many tacit elements in patent documents. This creates technological gap between competitors. This regime favours creation of Temporary monopoly because it is believed that R&D time and invention investment is sure to yield a some amount of payback.
Impact of IPR Regime:
a) Possibility to increase Capacity to absorb technological knowledge
b) New business models and investment proposals
c) Establishment of Linkages in innovation model
d) Greater acces to technological know-how
e) Motivation for enterprenurship
f) Better visualisation of market conditions and demand
g) Growing interaction between International Political Economies
h) Test of Risk taking attitude
Modifications in IP regime may be introduced looking at emerging changes in technologies and
shifting patterns global structure of industry. The strategies of multinational firms must
be studies in order to understand their influence on policy domain in international
treaties and fora. This will help to evolve capabilties and strategies of Indian Firms.
Therefore, the strategic options available with Indian Research Firms are:
a) To exploit relatively less expensive research skills
b) Outsourcing, subcontracting of R&D activities to universties and other institutions
c) Establishing R&D consortia and Looking for joint R&D projects
d) Focussing on new use patents
e) Developing new process patents by optimisationn and new performance mechanisms
Therefore there is more need of partnership between public sector, industry and R&D
institutions. This is transition phase where shift from less to more complex, more risky
and investment intensive innovation will be the challenge ahead of Indian industries.
B) Rural Innovation
Ten Commandments of Rural Innovation:
i) Invention is not compulsory for innovation
ii) Transfer of technology not necessary promotes innovation
iii) Inventions/modifications by rural pepole are not inherently superior to scientific one
iv) Training is not enough for innovative capacity building
v) There are no lessons learnt by some successful exaamples
vi) NGOs are tail-end disseminators of innovative practises
vii)schematising kills new innovative initiatives
viii)This is particilatory technology development
ix)Private sector involvement & profits are necessary for pro-poor innovation
x) New investments are needed, new ways of working expected
In rural innovation practsies, linear flow of technology is observed where mandates are compartmentalised and there is specific lack of recognising beneficiaries in a evaluation mechanism. Problem about any policy is, it is not enforceble like laws.
So, how to enable Rural Innovation...?
a) By building coalition of actors from different domains
b) By acknoledgeing benefits & stakes of all actors
c) By learning from every technology, process and context
d) By highlighting impediments in converting good idea into product in economy.
C) S&T Infrastructure:
There should be efficient interoperability in S&T infrastructure.
i) Labs, workshops, planetaria, extension center, science club
ii) Data centres,animal house, germplasm, repositories, libraries, designs, museums, data
generators-collectors
iii)Journals, network of editors/peers, databases, proffessional societies
iv)Incubation park, S&T park, high-tech park, test house
v) Stock exchange for Start-ups, S&T parks, VC Managers, rating agents & their sydicates
vi) ICT backbone, Ecommerce set up, spot exchanges on elctronic trades
vii) Instrumentation intensity/ facility, availibility of equipments
viii) Rsearch institutes controlled by proffessionals, govt. administrators, banks/funds, local
legislatoes/societies, managers under non-profit mode and profit mode
ix) Institutes of standards, measures, quality, rule setting bodies, certifying authorities
x) Policy guidlines, leadership
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