[eight news stories in this post.]
Waterford News & Star :: R&D is the key to the future
...FURTHER investment in education is necessary to ensure Ireland's economic survival, the attendance was told at a conference addressed by leading Irish academics and industry leaders in Dungarvan on Monday.
The conference entitled "The Knowledge Economy - Working, Creating, Innovating" was the last in the series of five conferences hosted WIT across the South East to stimulate debate about issues of national and regional significance and to encourage improved partnerships between key policy and decision makers in the region. The Dungarvan conference identified key factors and issues relating to the knowledge economy and its implications for modern work practices in organisations within the South East and throughout Ireland...
...The new Western Economic Partnership Agreements respond to the 2002 Speech from the Throne commitment that "the government will target its regional development activities to better meet the needs of the knowledge economy and address the distinct challenges of Canada's urban, rural and northern communities." Funding for this initiative was provided for in the February 2003 federal budget...
The Times of India :: Being effective the Covey way
...For all those business managers who think success is a function of corporate wizardry, here's a revelation from Steven Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The road to high-product quality is paved by individuals who are not only competent, but whose lives are centered on enduring timeless principles.
Information-age organisations functioning in a knowledge economy cannot afford to overlook the mutual importance of technical and social competencies. Organisational and technological successes can no longer be achieved without awareness for improved ways of working. Serious consideration needs to be given to relationship between doing quality work and having strong character. For Covey, both are crucial to building enduring organizations, developing high-trust relationships, and maintaining a strong work culture...
Telegraph News :: How university was turned into a Disney-style adventure
...Lectures, libraries and laboratories are over-crowded, teaching is too perfunctory, contact with lecturers too slight and the quality of courses too variable. At the same time the Government has allowed a rigorous and informative quality assurance system to be junked, with the result that choosing a course is becoming like sticking a tail on a donkey while blindfolded.
The only response to all this from the Government is to insist that a "knowledge-based economy" requires an almost infinite number of graduates and that most future expansion will be in cheaper two-year, vocationally-related "foundation degrees" taught largely in further education colleges.
Perhaps in the end affordability will be the key. The more costly university becomes, the more realistic students may be about whether Disney-style mass higher education has anything worthwhile to offer them...
Botswana Daily News :: Ministry committed to improve living standards
...Ministry of Communications, Science and Technology is committed to improving Batswana's living standards by turning Botswana into an information and knowledge-based economy, says the ministry's permanent secretary Marianne Nganunu.
Nganunu told BOPA that to achieve this goal and improve living standards her ministry would harness technology and material resources in a sustainable manner. Three new departments of Telecommunications and Postal Services, Science, Research and Technology Development and Information Technology Services have been established in this regard.
She said research, science and technology policies were formulated in an effort to develop regulations and guidelines for research, science and technology...
TheStraitsTimes :: WTO impasse to top agenda of Apec summit
...Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said Thailand steered a series of Apec meetings this year to serve the government's economic strategies for local benefit, linking its policies with international cooperation.
The government's strategies match the sub-theme of the Apec meeting, which is to focus on a knowledge-based economy, promoting human security, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and implementation of development pledges agreed in previous meetings.
The government will champion information technology, SMEs and the 'One Tambon, One Product' schemes. Tambon refers to a sub-district in Thailand...
...Whether your interest lies in high-fidelity loudspeakers based on plasma technology, a 40-euro scanning tunnelling microscope with applications in nanotechnology, or using genetic engineering to determine intracellular pH, you need look no further than the three first-prize winners of this year's EU contest for young scientists. Yesterday in Budapest the European Commission awarded the prize to two young Germans and a Hungarian researcher. But contestants from several other countries (the Czech Republic, Poland, the Netherlands, Russia and Switzerland) won second an third prizes in areas as diverse as computing, biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics. ...
As part of the EU's Science and Society programme, the aim of this annual event is to encourage young people to pursue their interest in science and embark on scientific careers. In today's knowledge-based society, it is vital for the future of Europe's that we continue to build a dynamic European research community. And that means it is also essential that young scientists such as those at the EU contest turn their interests into careers...
Europa: Rapid :: First European Youth Week "Youth IN Action" (29 September to 5 October)
...The European Commission, the European Parliament and the EU Member States joined forces in April 2000 to set up the YOUTH Community action programme, the aim being to meet the needs of young people (of 15 to 25 years of age) and youth leaders by providing financial aid for their projects, along with information, training and partnership opportunities throughout Europe and beyond. Since its launch, the Youth programme has provided funding for some 40 000 projects and provided mobility facilities for some 400 000 young people. Its aim is to help create a "knowledge-based Europe" and a European cooperation structure for developing youth policy, based on non-formal education. It encourages lifelong learning and training and the development of skills which will boost active citizenship...
Salle de Presse des Institutions européennes :: Japan will benefit from the enlarged Union
SPEECH/03/431 by Günter Verheugen, Membre of the European Commission
...Japan is a major political and economic partner of the European Union. It is the Union's second largest trading partner. Together, we account for some 40% of world GDP and almost 30% of world trade. We have a common responsibility to make a substantial contribution to global governance in the world. ...
The implementation of the Lisbon Strategy. At the Lisbon Summit in 2000, the Union set itself the objective of becoming the most competitive and dynamic knowledge based economy in the world by 2010, capable of sustained economic growth and better employment. Much has already been achieved by opening up energy markets, modernising competition policy and putting in place an integrated Europe-wide financial market. But the Union will need to intensify the pace of reform and to advance the Lisbon agenda of social, economic and environmental renewal...
K-Collector