Innovation and world’s problems today: Report from Rabat
We know that today, more than one person in five subsists on less than $1 day in developing countries and it is estimated that there are 1.1 billion people living in extreme poverty. Despite technological advances, hunger and disease rates continue to increase in some countries, presenting a huge challenge to the international community. It is against this background that the INNOGRIPS project team, supported by the European Commission organised a high level Innovation Policy Workshop, the aim of which was to address the most important issues and engage in debate about the roles of innovation in the fight against poverty, hunger and disease.
The meeting was attended by 15 participants comprising invited experts from universities and research institutions, members of major international development organizations, INNOGRIPS project team members and representatives from the European Commission Directorate General Enterprise and Industry.
Innovation policy necessarily involves policy in the more industrially advanced regions of the world, where the problems are typically least severe, but also in poorer developing regions – some of which may have relatively good performance, whilst others are in desperate straits. Innovation policy will need to encompass a wide range of traditionally discrete policy areas – parts of agricultural and innovation policies, education policies, environmental policies, health and welfare policies, intellectual property policies, research and science policies, and the like. It is important to understand how polices in the EU – including trade and aid policies – relate to the innovation policy agendas in developing regions themselves.
This innovation policy workshop was designed to address these issues, in the context of innovation-oriented action in the EU and other industrially advanced regions. It took into account the various paths that the co-evolution of innovation policies and measures to address the three major problems are taking in different world regions.
The full report (and other related documents) can be downloaded here. We welcome your comments and ideas!
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This blog is part of the INNO-GRIPS project. This blog serves as a research log for the project, and also aims to facilitate communication and exchange of views between the project and the wider public (especially innovation researchers and practitioners). We therefore invite and welcome your comments, ideas and inputs about our project. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO LEAVE COMMENTS in any posts/pages in this blog (and in other related blogs).
INNO-GRIPS compiles and further analyses existing studies world-wide as well as information on innovation policy making, business innovation and academic discussion. InnoGRIPS is part of the ProINNO Project.
(The explanation below is taken from the official INNO-GRIPS website)
“INNO-GRIPS is intended to supply a single, unified framework for innovation intelligence, to explore challenging questions in the area of innovation and to make a significant contribution to the improvement of the regulatory and administrative environment for innovation in Europe and to the coherent development of innovation policies.
The objective of INNO-GRIPS is to provide an accessible pool of knowledge regarding world-wide existing studies and information on innovation policy-making, business innovation and academic discussions. INNO-GRIPS also provides innovation monitoring and analysis to respond more quickly to the analytical needs created by new policy or technology developments.
INNO-GRIPS will provide a platform for open discussion among experts on relevant innovation policy and business issues to foster intellectual debate and provide a workshop setting for future developments. This contributes to building an “early-warning” system for policy-makers to facilitate the timely adoption of appropriate policy responses.
Key INNO-Grips activities are research, analysis, consultation and dissemination activities involving the Commission, researchers and other important stakeholders in the innovation process.”
PRO INNO Europe itself is a new initiative of Directorate General Enterprise and Industry which aims to become the focal point for innovation policy analysis, learning and development in Europe, with the view to learning from the best and contributing to the development of new and better innovation policies in Europe.
This blog is currently moderated by research team based on Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIoIR/PREST) at Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, UK.
