The Reorientation of Thailand’s National R&D Programmes - Limits and Challenges

<p>Since 2016 Thailand has recognised a significant transition in research and innovation policy, with government increasingly acknowledging the importance of national R&amp;D programmes and favourable institutional conditions as determinants to overcome middle income trap. Drawing a lesson-learned from successful experiences of South Korea and Japan, the Thai government decided to experiment the national large-scaled mission-oriented R&amp;D programme, known as ‘Spearhead R&amp;D Programme’. This novel innovation financing scheme was designed to accelerate the commercialisation and economic impact of R&amp;D outputs. From the outset, it was clear that the outcome and impact of Spearhead R&amp;D Programme was yet to be realized. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the reorientation of Thailand’s research and innovation landscape with the focus on the efficiency of operation in relation to the objective of the Spearhead R&amp;D Programme. It is found that the Spearhead R&amp;D Programme is equipped with four novel conceptual and operational features including strategic national STI agenda, R&amp;D commercialization, multi-year budget allocation and proactive research management. Yet, there were also potential limits and challenges that need to be addressed to move the Programme towards greater sectoral contribution with open innovation and flexibility in policy learning.</p><p> </p><p>Keywords: Research &amp; Innovation Reform, Mission-oriented R&amp;D Programme, Policy Experiment, Catch-up, R&amp;D Commercialisation, Thailand</p>

New Directions in Sensor Research: A Bibliometric Analysis for Detecting Emerging Research Fields and New Technological Trajectories

The fundamental question in the field of sensor research is new directions of scientific fields, which play a vital role in the progress of science and technology. This study confronts this question here by developing a bibliometric analysis, which endeavors to explain the evolution of sensor research and new technologies that are critical to science and society. The database of Scopus concerning scientific documents and patents is used for statistical and computational analyses in these topics. Results suggest that emerging technological trajectories in sensors are wireless sensor networks, wearable sensors and biosensors. Main characteristics of these growing research fields and technologies in sensors are described for fruitful implications of research and innovation policy directed to science advances and technological change in society.

Getting Cozy, or How the European Commission Produces Legitimacy in the EU

International organizations increasingly resort to strategies of legitimation in order to justify their authority and policies. This article explores one such strategy of the European Commission that targets organized interest groups with the aim to build a legitimating constituency. The members of this constituency not only contribute expertise to a policy, but also benefit from that policy and, therefore, participate in the development and confirmation of a claim to the policy's legitimacy that is put forward by EU officials. As a consequence, the agents seeking legitimacy and the addressees granting it become closely associated and “get cozy” with each other. EU officials address their claim to legitimacy to a community of co-opted elites who are likely to confirm this claim and in whose own interests it is to do so. The result is legitimation as a collaborative activity with preordained outcomes. Taking the case of the European Commission's research and innovation policy, and building in part on an ethnographic practitioner's account, the article provides an original insight into how this legitimation strategy works in everyday EU policymaking.

EVOLUTION OF OPEN SCIENCE TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGIES

Building a global information space and Knowledge Society, the European community is developing a priority area for research and innovation policy – the Open Science, which, among other things, provides open access to publications and research results. When developing this direction in Ukraine, it is expedient to take into account the experience of successful countries, global transformations and trends, digital progress, and historical lessons. The article’s purpose is to substantiate the periodization and determine the stages of evolution of open science tools and technologies in the world. The article presents some results of the research within the project «Cloud-oriented systems of open science in teaching and professional development of teachers» (registration number 2020.02/0310) implemented with grant support from the National Research Fund of Ukraine. Theoretical methods are used: historical-pedagogical method, generalization of scientific and scientific-methodical sources, analysis and systematization of concepts, works of Ukrainian and foreign scientists, experts in the field of digitalization of education and science. The periodization of the evolution of open science tools and technologies has been developed. The first stage was characterized by a sharp increase in data and knowledge flows, the emergence of the first initiatives to ensure the availability of scientific and cultural achievements of humankind. The second stage was characterized by the intensification of the process of transition of journals and scientific repositories to the open format, the development and dissemination of software to support open access, the development of cloud computing and Web 2.0 technology. The result of the third period was the intensive development of scientific-educational environments, due to the processes of digitization, increasing trends: open access, archiving of articles, data exchange.

Tactical Art of Risk Management in the History of Ninja

The notion of the innovation system is connected to the role of leaders and decision makers in the management of the scientific and technological environment. Innovative frameworks of analysis, by approaching science and technology systemically (i.e., in relation to the economy, politics, and society), adapt stress for success. Any research and innovation policy must take account of a complex set of problems. The focus of this work is to analyze the application of tactical strategies in the risk management, looking at the historical ninja training. Their worldview, the “way of the warrior” as an art of war but also as a path of inner knowledge, has also had great importance in artistic production, culture, and the construction of social relations.

Implementasi Quadruple Helix Dalam Mendorong Pertumbuhan Ekonomi Kreatif

The Quadruple Helix concept is the development of Triple Helix by integrating civil society. The Quadruple Helix approach is far from being considered a definite and established concept in research and innovation policy. The purpose of this study is to describe the Quadruple Helix application which can be used as a system framework to increase creative economic growth as a tourism attraction in the city of Yogyakarta. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative, primary data obtained from observations, interviews, and FGDs with representatives from academia, fashion creative economy actors, communities, and the government. The location of this research is the Ngasem Market and Malioboro areas. The results of this research are skills development training that focuses only on certain groups such as designer groups, pencorek groups or other groups, so that training participants can learn according to their interests and talents, hold batik fashion exhibitions near tourist objects that are visited by many tourists, and marketing strategy training that is oriented to the environment and changes in consumer behavior.

Corporate R&D intensity decomposition: different data, different results?

Research and Development (R&D) indicators are used to facilitate international comparisons and as targets for research and innovation policy. An example of such an indicator is R&D intensity. The decomposition of the aggregate corporate R&D intensity is able to explain the differences in R&D intensity between countries by determining whether is the result of firms’ underinvestment in R&D or of the differences across sectors. Despite its importance, the literature of corporate R&D intensity decomposition has been developed only recently. This article reviews for the first time the different methodological frameworks of corporate R&D intensity decomposition and how they are used in practice, shedding light on why sometimes empirical results seem to be contradictory. It inspects how the use of different data sources and analytical methods affect R&D intensity decomposition results, and what the analytical and policy implications are. The article also provides methodological and analytical guidance to analysts and policymakers.

Responsible innovation in biotechnology: Stakeholder attitudes and implications for research policy

This article explores attitudes of stakeholders involved in biotechnology towards the Responsible Innovation (RI) framework. As a framework for governance, RI has received increasing scholarly attention but has yet to be successfully integrated into U.S. research and innovation policy. Using a mixed methods approach, we analyzed the attitudes of different biotechnology stakeholders, particularly those working in areas related to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture and the environment, towards the principles and practices of RI. Homogenous focus groups (organized by stakeholder affiliation) and pre- and post-focus group surveys were used to measure attitudes towards RI. We designed the survey questions according to the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and examined the agreement of stakeholders with policy core beliefs (general principles of RI) and secondary beliefs (implementation practices of RI). Although all stakeholder groups had neutral to positive attitudes towards RI general principles, we found significant differences in their reactions to the scholarly definitions of RI and in their attitudes towards practices to implement RI. In comparison to government and advocacy groups, stakeholders promoting biotechnology innovations–industry, trade organizations, and academics–had more negative reactions to social science definitions of RI and to RI practices that relinquish control to people outside of technology development pipelines. Qualitative analysis of focus-groups revealed barriers for implementing RI practices. For example, innovators were cynical about including external voices in innovation pathways due to inflexible funding programs and were concerned about potential delays to innovation given the highly competitive environments for financing and patents. In order to help address these tensions, we call for the co-design of RI practices between biotechnology innovators and other stakeholders. The opening-up of biotechnology innovation to RI practices of anticipation, inclusion, responsiveness and reflexivity will likely be important for future, public legitimacy of emerging genetic engineering applications such as gene editing and gene drives.

Developing an evaluation framework for university-driven technology-based, innovation for inclusive development (UTI4ID) projects

From the evaluation literature related to research and innovation policy, calls have long been made for improved evaluation processes especially where projects and programmes may be evaluated from a systems perspective. Drawing on the literature of innovation systems and innovation for inclusive development (I4ID) this research proposes a state-of-the-art analysis framework, which can be used to evaluate University-driven Technology-based Innovation for Inclusive Development (UTI4ID) projects. In particular, this framework draws on 16 exploratory case studies of UTI4ID that leads to the development of typologies that can be used in future UTI4ID evaluations to better guide such efforts. We thus not only show that advances in the I4ID literature provides an ideal starting point for complexity cognisant evaluations, but also contribute an end-to-end framework to support such evaluations and populate a detailed guide for future UTI4ID projects.