Eleven stories today on the continuing global conversation on the knowledge economy and the growth and maturation of knowledge societies. This topic has been burgeoning in coverage lately. Enjoy.
Business Day :: China third in R&D spending: OECD
...SHANGHAI - China has jumped to third in the world in the amount of money it spends on research and development, a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows.
Total research and development spending in China in 2001 reached nearly 60 billion dollars, behind only the United States and Japan who had expenditures of 282 billion and 104 billion respectively, said the Paris-based group in a report published every two years.
China came in ahead of Germany's 54 billion dollars, while India spent about 19 billion, putting it among the top 10 countries worldwide. The OECD data, which measures trends in the knowledge-based economy, said that spending in China has grown rapidly, from 0.6 percent of gross domestic product in 1996 to 1.1% in the latest year.
Most of the rise in research and development expenditure is due to higher business investment, a sign that China has moved quickly towards developing its knowledge-based industries. In China, 60% of the spending in 2001 came from domestic and foreign companies, with the rest coming from the government.
In the past two years multinationals such as Alcatel, General Electric and computer chip manufacturers such as Infineon have set up research centres in China in order to take advantage of lower costs and a comparatively cheap, educated labour force.
Most of research goes into applied technologies, such as the development of new cell phones or auto technology that then uses conventional engineering techniques.
China now has the second highest number of researchers in the world with 743,000, behind the 1.3 million in the United States but ahead of Japan and Russia, with 648,000 and 505,000 respectively.
For the group of 30 OECD countries, spending as a proportion of total output in 2001 was 2.3%, with major non-OECD economies currently accounting for 17% of global research expenditure.
Among individual OECD members, Sweden topped the list with spending at 4.3% of total output, while the US was on 2.8 percent and Britain 1.9%...
Business News :: Australia-US talks turn tense
...Talks on an Australia-US free-trade agreement resumed yesterday with the hardest issues yet to be negotiated and opposition rising among union, consumer, film and TV industry groups.
Key issues remain agriculture, Australia's pharmaceutical benefits scheme, local content rules for film and TV, and services and investment arrangements.
A deal must be finalised by the end of the year to meet the deadline set by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister John Howard, and to enable ratification by the US Congress before next year's American elections.
As negotiations began yesterday, unionists protested outside Parliament House against a deal they said would destroy Australian jobs.
"Thousands of jobs will be lost in our manufacturing industries if we go ahead with this agreement," said Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national secretary Doug Cameron. "Our Government is trading away our future capacity to be part of the knowledge economy by destroying our capacity to manufacture." ...
vnunet :: Human factors key to success in IT
By Rachel Fielding
...IT professionals must develop good interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence if they are to succeed, according to experts at a recent IDC technology forum in Paris.
Chief information officers (CIOs) attending the event were told that companies that ignore the human factors in IT projects leave themselves at greater risk of failure.
While innovation and technology enhancements have the potential dramatically to improve business processes, speakers at the conference stressed that failing to recognise the impact of IT on people could render investments at best wasted and at worse counterproductive. ...
it is not just the feelings and perceptions of internal users that IT professionals need to take into account.
"Customers are taking control," said Patricia Seybold, chief executive of Patricia Seybold Group, a US-based e-commerce consulting company.
"Thanks to the internet and mobile devices customers can be much more demanding about comparing products. Customers are voting with their feet in that they have not all chosen to do business direct."
Searching for information and purchasing products, whether face-to-face, over the phone or online, can be challenging for customers.
Seybold insisted that IT departments must have the customers' experience uppermost in their minds when developing channels to market.
In an increasingly competitive environment, where customer allegiance lasts only as long as the experience is positive, the risks for firms that don't account for customers' needs and wants are obvious.
Seybold believes that this approach should also be applied to internal staff.
"In a knowledge economy: the quality of talent firms employ and the ability to retain 'knowledge assets' become critical to success," she argued. "Helping staff do their jobs by offering easy access to data is a key step."...
2theadvocate :: San Diego's experience shows research is key to development
By CHAD CALDER
...Baton Rouge's dream of a thriving biotech industry rests on university and community leaders recognizing that scientific research and discovery is an essential component of economic development, a San Diego academician says.
Dr. Alan Paau, assistant vice chancellor for technology transfer and intellectual property at the University of California at San Diego, said the philosophy of his university and the political establishment has been crucial to making San Diego the fourth-largest city for biotechnology and biomedicine.
"UCSD is here to serve the community," Paau recalled the university's chancellor once telling him, "and industry is an important part of the community."
Paau said the top biotechnology centers that cities across the country are trying to emulate are all home to research institutions.
First-ranked San Francisco has Stanford, UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley; second-ranked Cambridge, Mass., has Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; third-ranked San Diego has UCSD; and fourth-ranked Raleigh, N.C., anchored by Research Triangle Park, has Duke University, the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State. ...
Paau said physical proximity is the key to building a closely knit, knowledge-based economy. Employees working near the university will spend time there, meeting visiting researchers, attending lectures and integrating themselves into the culture of academia, he said. And researchers will be more apt to serve on boards and act as consultants, he added.
"If you're 30 miles away, it's not conducive to that kind of environment," Paau said. Paau also said researchers are sensitive to how much their political leadership truly values their work.
A research community that sees its city and state taking tech development seriously will start to produce technology that is commercially viable. If it hears only talk -- or nothing at all -- researchers will be more likely to conduct research for knowledge's sake, he said...
The Nation :: Business ethics stressed at Apec event
by Kitipong Urapeepatanapong
... I have recently been highly critical of a lack of effective enforcement as undermining the "knowledge-based economy" (KBE). Apec made three key points on this. Firstly, make the standards simpler. This is a point I have already made. Second, concentrate on capacity building, which means that special investigation bodies need to be established and given the required resources as the normal police do not have the necessary expertise. This also needs to include judicial and prosecutor training. Thirdly, regulators must be strong, active and independent...
eTaiwanNews :: Conference on competition laws to start tomorrow
...Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has organized the International Conference on Competition Policies and Laws - the Future Development of Competition Framework. Tomorrow and Wednesday, experts on globalization and the development of a competition framework will deliver speeches on the topic at the Howard International House.
"This conference will dwell on issues that impact the public good," said Dr. Tzong-leh Hwang, chairman of the Fair Trade Commission. "These include globalization, intellectual property rights and a competition framework for financial reform."
Twenty-nine scholars and experts from 13 countries plus delegates from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) will speak on various topics such as Harmonization of Competition Laws, Regional Cooperation between Competition Authorities and Globalization and the Development of Competition Framework.
"Since our establishment in 1992, the Fair Trade Commission has actively carried out initiatives in accordance with law, promoted economic development, safeguarded the public interest, and kept in step with international trends," said Hwang. "But rapid technological development has propelled the world into the age of the knowledge-based economy and a number of issues need to be discussed within a global framework." ...
Telecom.paper: Flemish research center for broadband technology gets subsidy
...The Flemish government has officially approved the foundation of an interdisciplinary virtual research center for broadband technology, as part of its priority to encourage a high developed knowledge society. The center will have no special focus, but is to develop and research all aspects of broadband technology. The initiative will be launched before the end of the year and will receive an annual subsidy of EUR 15 million. The Flemish governments points out a number of fields in which broadband technology research can be conducted: interactive digital television, availability of ICT in health care, tourism, and teleworking...
The Scientist :: Euro research area agreement
By Stephen Pincock
...The European Research Area project was launched at the European Council at Lisbon in March 2000 in an effort to strengthen the competitiveness of Europe's knowledge-based economy by creating a research analogue for the "common market" that exists for goods and services in the European Union.
Last year, the European Council meeting in Barcelona set the goal of attaining a level of 3% of gross domestic product for research and development investment in the European Union by 2010, to achieve the objectives set out at Lisbon.
Euroscience, an association that aims to influence science and technology policy, welcomed the announcement with some reservations.
"This is an excellent idea," said Jean-Patrick Connerade, president of Euroscience. "In principle, what it does is open up the Commission to organizations which are external to it, and therefore it is a welcome development because it achieves a greater integration of the European scientific community."
But in line with Euroscience's grassroots perspective, he noted that the statement focuses on integrating institutional, "top-down" research.
"Many of us feel that bottom-up research, or blue sky research, at the European level is still not really very well organized," he told The Scientist.
"Some of Europe's best scientists are in the organizations listed, but not all of them. What we're concerned about is to make sure we do not forget individual scientists of very high quality pursuing projects which perhaps are not within such institutional structures," Connerade said...
WISH News 8 :: Changes at State Universities Signal Economic Shift
...Five of Indiana's seven public universities have replaced their presidents since 2000. At the state's 31 private colleges, nine have chosen new presidents since 2000.
The wave of new presidents comes as the state undertakes a transition from a manufacturing-based to a knowledge-based economy. Colleges are being called on to support new ventures in life sciences, advanced manufacturing and information technology...
4NI - Northern Ireland :: Two Curriculum bodies meet in Armagh
...Ireland's two main Curriculum Bodies are to meet in Armagh today and tomorrow to discuss education issues of common interest across the island of Ireland.
The Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) and their Southern Irish counterparts, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) will meet in the City Hotel, Armagh to discuss developments in e-learning, education for employability and reviewing the primary and 16 - 19 curriculum.
Welcoming the NCCA delegates, Chairman of CCEA, Dr Alan Lennon said: "It is striking to note the similarity of the challenges facing our two organizations and thus more important than ever that we share ideas and approaches."
Dr. Catherine O' Brien, Chairperson of NCCA, added: "As the leading development in education north and south, both Councils face a range of common challenges, not least of which is ensuring that young people are ready to contribute to and participate in the knowledge society. Both Councils are committed to moving our schools and students into the forefront of this development."
This is the sixth occasion on which the members of the two Councils have met in joint session...
Gulf News :: Education key to reforms
By Mohammed Almezel, Bureau Chief
...Investing in education and promoting knowledge are the fundamental keys to address the lack of basic freedoms in the Arab world and empower its women, a prominent Gulf academic said yesterday.
"We have to admit that there is a huge knowledge gap between the Arab world and the so-called developed world," Dr Rafia'a Ghubash, President of the Bahrain-based Arabian Gulf University, said.
"Education budgets in most Arab countries are minimal when compared to countries in other parts of the world," she noted.
She said the region which is under military and cultural attack needs to invest in and promote knowledge because it is the first and the main line of defence."
"Defending our culture and language, to me, is far important than the military defence," Dr Rafia'a said. Knowledge is also the key to reform the political and social systems in the region, she added.
She was speaking at the UN House in Manama following the official launch of the 2003 Arab Human Development Report (AHDR), the second of a four-part series of reports that aim at "building human development in the Arab world."
The report, written by a group of Arab scholars and opinion leaders, is at once descriptive and prescriptive, with bold recommendations for change and detailed analyses of the current state of education, scientific research, the media, the publishing industry, culture encompassing religion, intellectual heritage and the Arabic language, and other building blocks of a "knowledge society" in the Arab world, said Dr Khalid Allouch, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) resident representative in Bahrain...