UNU-MERIT in African ICT capacity building effort Posted: 2008-12-01
UNU-MERIT has been tasked with carrying out a training programme for entrepreneurs wanting to build businesses on Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) in eastern and southern Africa. For this project, UNU-MERIT has joined forces with the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (AITI) in Accra, Ghana. The work is part of ict@innovation a joint programme of FOSSFA - The Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa and InWEnt - Capacity Building International, Germany and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
The focus is on FLOSS as a key technology to drive innovation, add local value and foster development-oriented and affordable ICT applications. The improvement of regional networking and strengthening of consulting capacities of ICT associations and training institutions as well as of other relevant change agents are key vehicles of the programme.
Project NEMO: Modelling Knowledge Exchange on Networks Posted: 2008-12-01
A complex network showing thematic structures of projects from the automotive sector during the fifth and sixth Framework Programmes.
Project NEMO, with its focus on Network models, Governance and R & D collaboration networks, has recently developed and analysed a new economic model of knowledge exchange on networks. This theme, developed by a team of Luxembourg and UNU-MERIT researchers led by Professor Robin Cowan, focuses on a systemic knowledge exchange, taking into account the interplay between network architecture and knowledge transmission mechanisms. The new model stands out amongst the existing empirical models, due its significant knowledge fit or technological fit component. The purpose of this model is to develop relationship between network and population structure and economic performance at levels of individual firms and the whole industry.
UNU- MERIT at OECD-World Bank Conference "Innovation and Sustainable Growth in a Globalised World" Posted: 2008-12-01
Prof. Luc Soete
A joint OECD-world Bank conference was organized on November 18-19 in France, to discuss on the role of technological innovation in fuelling the economic development of the OECD countries as well as a group of non-member countries including Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa. Over a period of time these countries have displayed a precipitous increase in innovation-powered productivity. The purpose of this forum was to create a platform for bringing together senior management, a select group of researchers, which included UNU-MERIT Director Luc Soete, and participants from the OECD and middle-income countries to engage in a productive discourse on the new body of knowledge, to adopt rethinking on the role of innovation in enhancing sustained growth in middle income countries in a globalizing world.
Nanotechnology and its development dynamics Posted: 2008-12-01
C60 molecule
On November 6, Can Huang of UNU-MERIT and Shyama V. Ramani of INRA jointly organized a meeting to discuss the results on the evolution of the Nanotechnology sectors, generated by the projects Nano-observatory (EU project /UNU-MERIT) and socio-economics of Nanotech (ANR project/France). A series of presentations revolved around the work on search strategies on publications to construct corpuses of scientific literature on nanotechnology and the dynamics of social actors in the University of Grenoble, France which has led it to become one of the poles of excellence in nanotechnology in Europe. Thereafter, the results of theoretical models applicable to understand the economics of joint labs and estimate knowledge functions using only patent statistics were presented. This included highlights of the preliminary results on patent indicators. Two forms of collaboration are envisaged; continuation of discussions of result and a concrete collaboration in the form of participation in a book project on Nanotechnology and Development.
UNU-MERIT ran the third ASTP survey this year coordinated by Anthony Arundel, Minna Kanerva and Cati Bordoy. This study surveyed 164 ASTP (Association of European Science and Technology Transfer Professionals) members and 299 non-ASTP technology transfer professionals across Europe. Out of the total surveyed, 140 responses were received from Tech transfer offices, with a 61% response rate from ASTP members. The objective of the survey was to obtain basic information on patenting, licensing, license income, and start-ups, building on the earlier ASTP surveys.
OECDs workshop on various dimensions of an innovation strategy: human capital, education and training Posted: 2008-12-01
Within OECDs horizontal programme on innovation strategy, on November (17-18), an important workshop on human resources, education and training in Bonn was sponsored by the German federal ministry of education and research. Prof Luc Soete from UNU-MERIT, in his key note speech, gave his views about education and training for innovation and innovation in education as important dimensions of an innovation strategy. The speech also highlighted the implications of such an innovation strategy in creating global relations between developing and developed nations and the importance of migration and its relation to diffusion of innovation.
Also published recently ...
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Latest UNU-MERIT Working Papers
[2009-001] R. Baghana & P. Mohnen: Effectiveness of R&D Tax Incentives in Small and Large Enterprises in Québec abstract
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[2008-077] N. Engel: Drivers and Barriers of Innovation Dynamics in Healthcare - Towards a framework for analyzing innovation in Tuberculosis control in India abstract
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[2008-076] N. Engel: Flexibility and innovation in response to emerging infectious diseases: Reactions to multi-drug resistant Tuberculosis in India abstract
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[2008-075] A. Arundel & C. Bordoy: Developing internationally comparable indicators for the commercialization of publicly-funded research abstract
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[2008-074] E. de Zutter & F. Toro: Normative Power is in the Eye of the Beholder: An Empirical Assessment of Perceptions of EU Identity at the WTO abstract
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[2008-073] K. Frenken, G. Silverberg & M. Valente: A percolation model of the product lifecycle abstract
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