Responsible governance in science and technology policy: Reflections from Europe,China and India

This Issues and Opinions Essay provides insights on developments and challenges related to responsible governance in the field of science and technology (S&T) across Europe, China and India. The Essay presents an overview of policy debates and some key public policy documents in these three geopolitical areas, exploring how responsibility is viewed and outlined in the policy domain. Considerations on the range of processes and actors affecting the relationship between science and society in China and India are also presented. Finally, the Essay introduces ‘responsiveness’ as a possible area for comparative research work on responsibility in S&T and relevant policy collaboration amongst the three regions.     

Mapping of S&T issues in the Indian Parliament: A scientometric analysis of questions raised in both Houses of the Parliament

The Parliament, the highest legislative body in India, plays a significant role in formulating national policies. It is, therefore, pertinent to find the concern the Members of Parliament and different political parties show and the priorities they accord to the S&T related issues. They can judge it statistically through the number of questions raised/asked on the floor of the House. The study presents such an analysis taking the example from the S&T questions raised in the year 1992 during the Tenth Parliament. The analysis has been done by dividing the S&T related issues into 14 socio-economic areas, such as environmental sciences, biotechnology, energy, food and agriculture, health, natural resources, telecommunications, human resource development, etc. and eight policy areas such as technology policy, international collaborations in S&T, etc. The raising of S&T questions jointly by MPs and different political parties through inter-party and intra-party sponsorships has also been studied. Such an analysis may provide an important basis to the managers and policy makers in formulating the S&T policy of a country.     

A bibliometric study of research activity in ASEAN related to the EU in FP7 priority areas

Two relevant recent developments in the area of science and technology (S&T) and related policy-making motivate this article: first, bibliometric data on a specific research area’s performance becomes an increasingly relevant source for S&T policy-making and evaluation. This trend is embedded in wider discussions on evidence-based policy-making. Secondly, the scientific output of Southeast Asian countries is rising, as is the number of international research collaborations with the second area of our interest: Europe. Against this background, we employ basic bibliometric methodology in order to draw a picture of Southeast Asian research strengths as well the amount and focus of S&T cooperation between the countries in Southeast Asia and the European Union. The results can prove useful for an interested public as well as for the scientific community and science, technology and innovation policy-making.     

Statistical profile of science and technology in India and Brazil

By making comparison of the science indicators, the author has critically examined the development of science and technology (S&T) in India and Brazil. The SWOT analysis indicate that, with the support of federal government, both of these developing countries have built capacities and capabilities in many areas of S&T towards attaining self-reliance and have developed potential to excel in the world-market and face challenges thereof. India and Brazil are continuing to make efforts for attaining the transition from a developing to a developed country and reviewing S&T policies towards achieving industrial competitiveness. The views expressed are the personal views of the author only.     

Basic research is overshadowed by applied research in China: a policy perspective

This paper demonstrates that basic research has been overshadowed by applied research in China for decades, from the perspective of S&T policy. The data involves 4,707 Chinese S&T policies during the period between 1949 and 2010, which are grouped into five phases, based on the process of S&T system reform in China. We also found that S&T policies in China are leaning more towards basic research, and the gap between basic research and applied research is shrinking.     

Globalization at the nano frontier: The future of nanotechnology policy in the United States, China, and India

The field of nanotechnology offers the possibility of transforming the international science and technology (S&T) policy landscape and making a significant impact on the direction of research and development for a wide range of nations and companies. Nanotechnology endeavors in the United States, China, and India remain some of the most interesting because of the opportunities and challenges this field poses for future competition and collaboration between these three nations. This paper examines how nanotechnology will raise new science and policy questions—and lead to new strategic linkages—that will have a major impact on the futures of these nations for decades to come. Then the paper analyzes and compares the current state of nanotechnology in these three countries, discusses some of the main drivers of collaboration, investigates current and potential uncertainties associated with nanotechnology, and offers policy suggestions on ways that these difficulties may be addressed.     

The use of S&T indicators in science policy: Dutch experiences and theoretical perspectives from policy analysis

The relation between bibliometrics and science policy remains underdeveloped. Relevance of new methods to produce indicators is easily claimed, but often without real insight in the policy processes. Drawing on experiences with the use of S&T indicators in science policy in the Netherlands and on principal-agent theory, I develop an analytical perspective which enbles to assess the role of S&T indicators in science policy. It is argue that the use of S&T indicators can only be understood well if one takes the socio-political context with its specific dynamics and rationalities into account.     

Mapping the dynamics of knowledge base of innovations of R&;D in Bangladesh: triple helix perspective

Triple helix (TH) collaborations involving university, industry and government provide a networked infrastructure for shaping the dynamic fluxes of knowledge base of innovations locally and these fluxes remain emergent within the domains. This study maps these emergence dynamics of the knowledge base of innovations of Research & Development (R&D) by exploring the longitudinal trend of systemness within the networked research relations in Bangladesh on the TH model. The bibliometric data of publications collected from the Science Citation Index (SCI), the social sciences and the arts and humanities for analysis of science indicators and the patent data collected from the US Patent Office to analyze the patent success ratio as a measure of innovation within TH domains. The findings show that the network dynamics have varied considerably according to the R&D policies of the government. The collaboration patterns of co-authorship relations in the SCI publications prominently increased, with some variation, from 1996 to 2006. Nevertheless, inter-institutional collaboration negatively influenced by the national science and technology (S&T) research policies in the last 5 years due to their evaluation criteria. Finally, the findings reveal that the R&D system of Bangladesh is still undergoing a process of institutionalizing S&T and has failed to boost its research capacity for building the knowledge base of innovations by neglecting the network effects of TH dynamics.     

Science, technology and the economy: An Indian perspective

During the first three decades after 1947, the Indian economy grew only 3% per year but there was vast expansion in the science and technology (S&T) infrastructure. Decades later, especially during the last few years, the economy has grown much faster, but the S&T systems have not experienced the transformation that business and industry have. The net result is that the public sector S&T system is facing a major crisis even as the private sector contributes little to the national R&D effort. Wealth generation in India by private S&T services, especially in information technology, has led to greater prosperity for the educated middle class, but has also led to greater inequalities in income. The national scene is one of generally uneven achievement and extraordinary potential. This paper argues that unless another major shift in S&T policy occurs, there is real danger that India will not move beyond its status as a blue-collar S&T power.     

India's collaboration with People's Republic of China in Science and Technology: A scientometric analysis of coauthored papers during 1994-1999

The paper describes the need and importance of collaboration on scientific research. It discusses the present status of India's collaboration with China in S&T, analyses the collaborative research between India and China, as reflected in the co-authored papers, in particular its nature, strong and week areas and its impact in different subject fields and indicates the potential areas in S&T for future collaboration. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Exploring temporal relationships between scientific and technical fronts: a case of biotechnology field

Biotechnology is an expanding interdisciplinary field in which the interactions of science and technology (S&T) are more and more intensified. Question raised regarding the dynamic interactions between S&T encourages us to propose a series of methodologies for examination. Using high-impact publications and patents as the proxy measures, two document sets are transformed into the scientific and technical front trajectories respectively, and then each subject is categorized into either basic science, or applied technology, or co-existence. The results show that, in the biotechnology field, subjects of embryonic or mesenchymal stem cells, RNA interference, microRNA, and microbial fuel cell are in the basic science phase; those of plant breeding, seed diversity, and taste receptors have been applied to practice. There also exists interactions between S&T in the subjects of disease treatment and gene analysis platform, in which the behavior of technology precedes science, science precedes technology, or synchronous development can be observed.     

Forecasting of science & technology expenditure of India by simulation method

In this paper, an attempt has been made to forecast science and technology expenditure of India by simulation method as well as by regression method. The base data used are the average yearly growth rates of science and technology expenditure both at current and constant prices. For the regression analyses, the yearly growth rates of the gross national product at factor cost both at current and constant prices are used as independent variable. The forecast values of S&T expenditure have been given up to seven years from 1982–83, for both simulation method and regression method.The content of the paper is the work of author's personal research and it does not reflect the views of the Government of India.     

A fuzzy set theory approach to national composite S&;T indices

Summary Composite science and technology (S&T) indices are essential to overall understanding and evaluation of national S&T status, and to formulation of S&T policy. However, only a few studies on making these indices have been conducted so far since a number of complications and uncertainties are involved in the work. Therefore, this study proposes a new approach to employ fuzzy set theory and to make composite S&T indices, and applies it. The approach appears to successfully integrate various S&T indicators into three indices: R&D input, R&D output, and economic output. We also compare Koreas S&T indices with those of five developed countries (France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) to obtain some implications of the results for Koreas S&T.     

An assessment of the impact and visibility of South African journals

Summary Recognizing the critical role played by science and technology in the development of fuel cells, this article aims to characterize the evolution of the S&T knowledge bases of fuel cells over the nineties, using data on patents and scientific publications. The field of fuel cells is particularly heterogeneous. It covers diverse sub-fields that are marked by idiosyncratic characteristics (e.g. actors, demand, and input) and different historical developments. Although this heterogeneity of the field of fuel cells is reflected in the dynamics of S&T knowledge generation within and across its sub-fields too, this article shows that it does not entail the absence of cognitive interrelations between their S&T knowledge bases. For that purpose, the article uses “simultaneous mapping' approach of their S&T knowledge bases by means of textual analysis.     

S&T education in India: Prospects and challenges

With the globalisation of the job market, higher education is undergoing structural changes and education scenario worldwide is experiencing dramatic and accelerating changes in patterns of creation of new knowledge. Similar activities are being witnessed in India as regards to the production of highly qualified S&T personnel in different disciplines. In this paper a comparative analysis of doctorates produced in India during 1974 to 1999 in different fields is carried out with the help of mathematical models. Besides analysing the trends of highly qualified S&T personnel with the help of known mathematical models, a few new substitution models have been proposed and applied to explain the movement of researchers from one discipline to the other. Findings suggest that arts, commerce, education and medicine depict growing trends, whereas agriculture, science and veterinary science are traversing a declining path. Further, proposed models are found to be flexible in nature and can capture and explain the shifting patterns very well. These models are comparable to other known models dealing with technology substitution. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Application of statistical physics methods and conceptsto the study of science & technology systems

We apply methods and concepts of statistical physics to the study of science & technology(S&T) systems. Specifically, our research is motivated by two concepts of fundamentalimportance in modern statistical physics: scaling and universality. We try to identify robust,universal, characteristics of the evolution of S&T systems that can provide guidance to forecastingthe impact of changes in funding. We quantify the production of research in a novel fashioninspired by our previous study of the growth dynamics of business firms. We study the productionof research from the point of view both of inputs (R&D funding) and of outputs (publications andpatents) and find the existence of scaling laws describing the growth of these quantities.We also analyze R&D systems of different countries to test the "universality" of our results.We hypothesize that the proposed methods may be particularly useful for fields of S&T (or forlevels of aggregation) for which either not enough information is available, or for which evolutionis so fast that there is not enough time to collect enough data to make an informed decision.     

Dynamics of the modern Venezuelan research community profile

Summary The main characteristics, human resources, organizational development, R&D output and outcome of the Venezuelan scientific and technological community, are studied in depth for three specific dates - years 1954, 1983 and 1999 -, aiming to reveal its strengths and weaknesses and to establish its dynamics. During the first half of the twentieth century, Venezuela had no major organized or institutionalized scientific activity. From 1954 thru 1983, the State built a considerable number of institutions mostly for research and development activities. Initially, researchers came from classical professions but were later substituted by graduates in scientific and technological disciplines. Biomedical and basic sciences are the areas of knowledge favored by researchers while, in terms of intellectual creation, social sciences and humanities seem to be the less productive, despite being one of the fields of knowledge embraced by most professionals. Although from 1983 on there has been no major input to the national S&T system, the research community showed a few years of growth in absolute terms in the number of publications, however national productivity decreased during the last decade of the century. It is believed that this reflects an aging, asphyxiated and self-consuming community using its reserves at a maximum rate. The S&T system constructed exhibits a dominance of the public sector that privileged, financially, the hydrocarbon related technological/service industry at the expense of academic research in universities while maintaining agribusiness related service and developmental research at the same level of expenditure throughout the last twenty years of the twentieth century. While the generation - practically from zero - of a modern R&D community in Venezuela, together with higher education, could well be one of the most significant accomplishments of democracy in Venezuela, this remarkable social achievement has been put in peril by neglect and changes in public policies. Downturn of the national S&T system is bound to worsen due to a virtual collapse, on February 4, 2002, of the R&D centre of the nationalized oil industry.     

Love dynamics between science and technology: some evidences in nanoscience and nanotechnology

This paper borrows Strogatz’s dynamic model for love affair between Romeo and Juliet and extends this model to nonlinear simultaneous differential equations model in order that we can characterize the dynamic interaction mechanisms and styles between science and technology (S&T). Then we further apply the proposed new model to the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology (N&N) for the purpose of analyzing the reciprocal dependence between S&T. The empirical results provide an understanding of the relationship between S&T and their dynamic potential of interdependence in the selected 20 leading universities in the field of N&N. We find that at present nanotechnology depends mainly on the scientific-push rather than the technology-pull and nanotechnology is science-based field. In contrast, a parallel development of the technology is not visible. Policy implications are at last put forward based on the several interesting findings for the interaction mechanisms between S&T in the field.     

Autonomy, security, and inequality: China, India, the United States, and the globalization of science and technology

Perhaps no three countries have benefited from the globalization of science and technology (S&T) more than India, China, and the United States. All three have leveraged the growing internationalization of innovation to offset weaknesses in their own national innovation systems. Still, globalization raises critical questions of autonomy, security, and equality, and in turn the political struggle over these three issues shapes the pace and scope of the globalization of S&T. Significant deterioration on any one of these criterion could lead to substantially less support among policy makers and the public for the globally networked system of innovation that appears to be emerging.     

Status of India in science and technology as reflected in its publication output in the Scopus international database, 1996–2006

This paper seeks to provide current indicators on Indian science and technology for measuring the country’s progress in research. The study uses for the purpose 11 years publications data on India and top 20 productive countries as drawn from the Scopus database for the period 1996 to 2006. The study examines country performance on several measures including country publication share in the world research output, country publication share in various subjects in the national context and in the global context, patterns of research communication in core Indian domestic and international journals, geographical distribution of publications, share of international collaborative papers at the national level as well as across subjects and characteristics of high productivity institutions, scientists and cited papers. The paper also compares the similarity of Indian research profile with top 20 productive countries. The findings of the study should be of special significance to the planners & policy-makers as they have implications for the long term S&T planning of the country.