Political Science Case

Although evidence from corporate, regional and national

innovation efforts strongly suggests that broader, even global

networks of knowledge sharing facilitate innovation and economic

development, national innovation systems have been slow

to expand internationally. There are political imperatives behind

such circumstances. Governments fund research programs and

facilities, hoping to encourage national scientific and technological

accomplishment and commercial spin-offs. Engagement

with foreign countries, by definition, runs counter to the nationcentric

approach preferred by governments. Scientific and tech-

9 | Carin Holroyd

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6 As this relates to Japanese firms, see Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995).

nological research being what it is, however, collaborations and

partnerships often extend far beyond national boundaries.

These researcher-centred networks, in turn, draw in corporations

and private research institutes from a variety of countries. The

research results are shared internationally through conferences,

publications and various collaborative ventures (Carlsson, 2006:

56-67). Some countries, led by Japan, have sponsored extensive

international linkages in the interests of capitalizing on the

full benefit of national and international investments in scientific

infrastructure. In an increasingly globalized commercial environment,

where outsourced manufacturing and service operations,

foreign branch plants, joint ventures, and long-term delivery

contracts have become the norm, Gibbons et al. (1994) suggest

that the internationalization of science and technology linkages

has become integral to national innovation strategies.

As far as the global implications of this marked shift in

economic priorities and planning toward innovation and big

science goes, however, there appears to have been little discussion.

In the early years of the Internet, politicians and global

leaders spoke with concern about the "digital divide" and

wondered about the future of the international economy when

industrial nations had ready access to the latest communications

technologies and developing nations lacked basic connections.

Massive investments in Internet connectivity brought digital

communications to major cities around the world. Developments

in satellite communications and, more significantly, wireless telephony

and wireless Internet, eliminated the need for emerging

nations to invest heavily in hardwire connections and allowed

for the rapid expansion of digital services into hitherto unconnected

areas. But there has been little equivalent international

conversation about "nano-divides" or "biotech-gaps," despite the

now standard assumption that economic prosperity in the coming

decades relies heavily on the ability of national economies to

The Innovation Divide... | 10

replace labour intensive manufacturing activity with high-technology

based investments and productivity.

The potential exists, therefore, for successful high technology

nations, led by Japan, Finland, Ireland, South Korea, and

the United States, to make a successful transition from industrial

to high-tech economies while developing and transitional states,

having not caught up on the manufacturing and industrial front,

fall further behind in a global economy increasingly tied to

developments in new technologies. Equally concerning is the

potential for gaps to emerge within developing countries themselves.

In Africa, for example, the Executive Director of the

National Institute for Scientific and Industrial Research in

Zambia, Mwananyanda Mbikusita Lewanika (2006), argued that

recent proposals to create African centers of scientific excellence

"will concentrate development in just a few countries,

condemning the rest of the continent to the status quo." Paul

Wolfowitz, former president of the World Bank, has been urging

developing countries not to ignore the importance of science

and technology in reducing poverty. Speaking at a meeting of a

large gathering of representatives of government, academia, the

private sector and NGOs in February 2007, he said "The amount

of resources that poor countries devote to science can't be zero.

That would condemn poor countries to backwardness... If you

want to tackle poverty, science technology and innovation must

be part of the picture" (cited in Dickson, 2007a).