globalization

The Information Superhighway Becomes International

Jerry Sheehan — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 09:27:09 -0700

Description

Prior to the last decade most data networks were routed through the United States. It was not uncommon for traffic from one European country to find itself being hauled to the US prior to being delivered to an EU neighbor.
However, we are clearly witnessing a major transition in this position as the exceptional pace of the development of international high speed network creation quickens.

This growth has been fueled by a number of factors. First, nations have begun to look at high speed networking as a necessary infrastructure for economic growth. A number of futurists have argued that today's networks are as importance economically as the sea routes and roads of yesterday.[1] Second, a number of countries in a post-911 world began to become concerned that American intelligence agencies might be "easedropping" on their data communications for either political or economic gain.[2] This de facto collaboration between American telecommunications companies and federal agencies is now an accepted fact.[3]

The globalization of the world's information infrastructure was a natural consequence of the increased adoption of the Internet throughout the world. One of the interesting challenges for the American marketplace is the development of methods to capitalize on the increasing percentage of international traffic coming to US web sites. The Wall Street Journal has reported that most major US sites not draw more then half their audience from international visitors but only generate 5% of their revenue from this traffic.[4]

This data infrastructure globalization will also likely lead to an increase in "dark" budgets used by intelligence agencies for electronic surveillance. J. McConnel, Director of National Intelligence for the United States, has revealed in the course of investigation of the Bush Administration's wireless wiretapping program that the US domestically wiretaps thousand of international calls.[5] As these communications move overseas the US will need to expend more effort and technological prowess to keep up.

Computer & Information Science

Source

1] "Can Optic Cables Predict Economic Shifts?", Om Malik, BusinessWeek, August 18, 2008
[2] "Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S.", John Markoff, New York Times, August 29, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/business/30pipes.html
[3] "Verizon and Government Seek Dismissal of Data-Mining Programs on Secrecy and Free Speech Grounds", Ryan Singel, Wired, August 30, 2007, http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/verizon-and-gov.html#previouspost
[4]"U.S. Web Sites Draw Traffic From Abroad But Few Ads", Emily Steel and Amol Sharma, Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2008, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121563492172840249.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
[5]"Spy Chief Sheds Light on Wiretaps", Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, August 23, 2007, http://articles.latimes.com/2007/aug/23/nation/na-intel23

Two Chinese universities now top feeders of American Ph.D.s

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:14:58 -0700

Description

For decades, American graduate schools have attracted students from all over the world. Over time, of course, the origins of international graduate students has shifted. For years, the NSF Survey of Earned Doctorates has been following where Ph.D. recipients received their undergraduate degrees, and each year it publishes a list showing what universities and colleges graduate the largest number of students going on to get Ph.D.s in the U.S.

The latest survey shows that in 2006, two Chinese universities contributed more Ph.D. students to American graduate programs. This is notable because until now, American universities have dominated (but not monopolized) the top five slots. The top fifty schools, and the number of Ph.D.s their graduates received in 2006, are below.

1. Tsinghau University 571
2. Beijing University 507
3. UC Berkeley 427
4. Seoul National University 393
5. Cornell University 308
6. University of Michigan 272
7. University of Texas Austin 267
8. Brigham Young University 259
9. UCLA 248
10. University of Florida 243
10. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 243
12. Harvard University 241
12. University of Wisconsin-Madison 241
14. Penn State University 236
15. National Taiwan University 226
16. MIT 197
17. Yonsei University (Korea) 193
18. Rutgers University 190
19. Ohio State University 182
20. University of Virginia 180
21. UC Davis 177
22. Texas A&M 175
23. University of Minnesoa-Twin Cities 169
24. University of Maryland College Park 167
25. Stanford University 166
26. Yale University 164
27. Fuda Universityn University (China) 163
27. University of Science & Technology (China) 163
29. UC San Diego 162
30. Brown University 161
31. Princeton University 160
32. Michigan State University 159
33. Nanking University (China) 155
34. University of Mumbai (India) 153
34. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 153
36. Virginia Tech 151
37. Indiana University - Bloomington 150
38. University of Arizona 148
38. UC Santa Cruz 148
40. Nankai University (China) 147
40. University of Washington - Seattle 147
42. Shanghai Jiaotong University (China) 144
43. Middle East Technical University (Turkey) 134
44. University of Pennsylvania 133
45. UC Santa Barbara 127
46. Duke University 122
47. China University of Science & Technology Anhwei 120
48. Korea University 119
48. North Carolina State University 119
48. University of Colorado - Boulder 119
48. Zhejiang University (China) 119

(copied from Universities Weblog)

Fifteen of the top 50 universities in this list are outside the United States; nine are in China, three are in South Korea, and India, Taiwan, and Turkey each have one. The one thing that I find surprising is that more Indian universities aren't in this list. Given the number of graduate students I meet who are from one or another IIT, I would have expected at least one of the campuses to have been in the top 50.

Another way to into the data is to look at what countries overall send the largest number of Ph.D. recipients.

1. China 4,323
2. India 1,524
3. Korea 1,219
4. Taiwan 431
5. Canada 363
6. Turkey 357
7. Russia 223
8. Japan 222
9. Thailand 199
10. Romania 187

Here, India shows up in the #2 spot, which indicates that its American-bound graduates are spread across a large number of institutions. Compare this with China, where fully a quarter of its American Ph.D.s come from Tsinghau and Beijing.

This list can't be read just as a sign of the decline of American competitiveness, as a couple reports have; rather, it reflects some of the peculiarities of the global education market. There are no European universities in the list, because there are world class graduate institutions there: a brilliant undergrad from Cambridge or Helsinki can get a great education-- and, depending on their field, build equally useful or better professional connections-- staying closer to home. (Notice that the only European country in that top 10 list is Romania.)

It's also worth noting that, as the Mercury News observes, "Many who come for doctoral study decide to stay - and contribute to the nation's innovation. One recent survey found that 93 percent of all new doctorate recipients holding permanent visas and 65 percent of temporary visa holders said they would remain in the United States after graduation."

Abstract:

China: Science & Technology

Source

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/srvydoctorates/
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/doctorates/
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08301/
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_9919746
http://www.universities-weblog.com/50226711/more_on_where_doctoral_candidates_come_from.php

India and China are Becoming Centers of Pharmaceutical R&D

jorgemata — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:36:09 -0700

Description

Excerpts:

Cost pressures, the need to tap global talent, and growth opportunities in emerging markets led Western pharmaceutical companies to shift substantial manufacturing and clinical-trial work to China and India. But a new study sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation on the globalization of the pharmaceutical industry shows that big pharmaceutical companies such as Merck, Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson are now counting on these countries for advanced research and development as well.

According to the study, The globalization of innovation: Pharmaceuticals. Can India and China Cure the Global Pharmaceutical Market?, Indian and Chinese scientists are rapidly developing the ability to innovate and create their own intellectual property as a result of the movement of research and development (R&D) to their countries. Several firms in these countries are performing advanced R&D and are moving into the highest-value segments of the pharmaceutical global value chain.

In 2006, 5.5 percent of all global pharmaceutical patent applications (WIPO PCT applications) named one inventor or more located in India, and 8.4 percent named one or more located in China. This had increased fourfold from 1995.

"Globalization is happening faster than people think. Having India and China conduct such sophisticated research and participate in drug discovery was unimaginable even five years ago," said Vivek Wadhwa, executive in residence at Duke University and a fellow at the Labor and Worklife Program of Harvard Law School, who led the team of researchers conducting the study. "The challenge is for America to understand this trend and realize the potential of globalization."

"The United States benefits from innovation wherever it occurs," said Robert Litan, vice president of Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation. "Having more countries like India and China develop treatments for diseases is good for the world and will help reduce the overall costs of health care. But the United States benefits most when those discoveries are made by companies owned primarily by U.S. citizens."

Through detailed interviews with executives of 16 pharmaceutical firms in China and India on their business models, value-chain activities, partnerships and technology capabilities, the researchers found that:

1. Indian and Chinese companies are making strides in the most lucrative segments of global value chains. In less lucrative segments, such as preclinical testing, animal experimentation and manufacturing, Chinese firms appear to be more prevalent.

2. India is regarded as a more mature venue for chemistry and drug-discovery activities than China.

3. Domestic Indian and Chinese firms rarely have the capital and the regulatory expertise to develop a drug beyond phase II clinical trials. Their commercial development of new intellectual property therefore necessitates relationships with major multinational corporations.

According to the study, because Indian drug companies have the most experience in selling generic drugs that meet FDA standards, India is playing a more strategic role in early discovery. Companies such as Ranbaxy, Aurigene, Advinus, Nicholas Piramal and Jubilant have negotiated long-term deals with Western pharmaceutical companies to discover and develop new chemical entities.

In a growing number of cases, the Indian companies share the financial risk in discovery as well as the potential financial rewards. One Chinese company, Hutchison MediPharma, has formed a similar partnership with Eli Lilly. Others are likely to follow suit as Chinese contract research organizations gain experience and Western companies come to trust in China‘s ability to protect intellectual property, said the researchers.

According to the findings, it is too early to tell whether China and India will become important sources of new drugs. In contrast to industries such as software and electronics, in which there has been substantial growth in offshore R&D, the pharmaceutical industry takes many years for a new product to emerge from R&D and regulatory approval. Most of the new risk-sharing arrangements date from 2005, so it could be another decade before there are concrete results.

The early progress, however, is promising, say researchers. Several companies have reached significant development milestones with new chemical entities. Several drugs from these partnerships are going into clinical testing. As a result, the trend of R&D moving to these countries is likely to gain further momentum, according to the study.

Download the report from the link below.

Source

Innovation is Rapidly Globalizing: India and China are Becoming Centers of Pharmaceutical R&D says Kauffman Foundation Study. Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, June 11, 2008. http://www.kauffman.org/items.cfm?itemID=1085

A "New Andalusian Renaissance": The coming rise of science in the Islamic world

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:41:03 -0700

Description

Since the 1500s, the Islamic world has lagged behind the West in science and technology. However, there is a sense among a small but influential community of Islamic scientists that this imbalance will end within a generation, and that the opportunity exists to shephard a "new Andalusian revolution" in science.

Several factors are at work:

The growth of new scientific institutions across the Islamic world. The establishment of the King Abdullah Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Saudi Arabia, rising reputations of universities in other nations (like India and Malaysia), and small but flourishing of research programs in high-status and high-visibility fields like space sciences and nuclear physics, point to the emergence of an Islamic infrastructure for scientific education and research. Of course, many of these institutions are still mainly focused on education, but they have ambitions to become world-class research universities within a generation.
The rise of life sciences. While projects like KAIST seek to compete with Western scientific institutions on their own terms, the growing accessibility of research tools in the life sciences, combined with the tremendous-- and still largely under-explored-- genetic diversity of flora and fauna in Islamic states like Malaysia and Indonesia, will give biological scientists in the Islamic world a chance to "leapfrog" their western counterparts.
A desire for more ethical forms of scientific practice. The practical development of cloning, life extension technologies, and widespread genetic engineering will all raise significant ethical questions. Western science's reductionist philosophical orientation, dualistic view of man and nature, and studied moral neutrality worked to its advantage in an age dominated by physics, but will create problems in an age of biology. In contrast, Islam's holistic, unified view of man and nature, and its long tradition of considering the ethical dimensions of professional and intellectual activities, will work to its advantage.
The viability of alternatives to Western institutions. Among the scientists we've engaged in workshops, there's a sense that while places like KAIST or IIT may become comparable to Western universities, the real opportunity lies in creating new institutions for science that don't follow traditional Western models. There's enough interesting stuff happening with open publishing, open innovation, etc., to suggest that countries like Malaysia and Indonesia have opportunities to succeed by developing the institutional equivalent of disruptive innovations.
Globalization, Islamic style. The rise of science is paralleled by-- and to some degree helped by-- efforts to create global halal standards, the development of sophisticated Islamic financial systems, the dramatic growth of wealth in the Islamic world, and the relative youth of the Islamic world compared to the West.

Signals

Growing support for science and technology in the Islamic world

KAUST announces research partnership with Technische Universität München

Saudi university recruits Singaporean university president

Saudi Arabia boosts nanotech research

Ben Goertzel on the future of science in China

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 00:20:15 -0700

Description

Serial entrepreneur and AI expert Ben Goertzel reflects on the future of science in China, and the comparative fortunes of China and the U.S.:

Hugo [de Garis, an Australian-born AI researcher who's worked in Europe, Japan, the U.S., and is now teaching at Wuhan University] is convinced that China is the country of the future and America is already obsolete. He foresees a coming century of reverse brain drain, where China recruits smart scientists and engineers from Western nations....

It might happen—I don’t rule it out. Of course, unlike Hugo, I think some sort of technological Singularity is very likely by mid-century and maybe sooner—but let’s ignore that for the moment ... talking just in conventional political/cultural terms, it’s not obvious to me that he’s right.

No doubt China has very many very smart and ambitious and hardworking people... but the cultural differences w/ the West are profound and I don’t think any of us understands what they mean in terms of the future of science and engineering.

One observation I like to make is as follows. People talk about the knowledge economy ... where manual work has long been outsourced to 3rd world countries, leaving 1st world countries increasingly consumed w/ knowledge work.

And more and more so, the US becomes a pragmatic knowledge integration economy—specialized knowledge like programming and science gets farmed out to 3rd world countries, but the task of integrating together various pieces of knowledge for practical purposes is still done in America. Even in Novamente, which is a damn international company, we do programming and science and project management overseas, but the figuring-out of what programming and science needs to be done to serve business goals, is largely done in the US. Because the US is where our customer companies are—even if their work is largely done overseas, the high-level staff defining their vision are mostly here. The matching-up of technology and business, where Novamente is concerned, occurs mainly within the arena of US culture. (We do have overseas customers, but they are either run by Americans or following business models that closely copy American ones.)

The next step, I think, is the creativity economy. Even integrative knowledge will become commoditized. Creation of new ideas will be the LAST thing to get commoditized. But this is exactly where America excels. No nation on Earth fosters creativity as well as the USA. And for this reason, I’m not so sure that America’s period of dramatic success is over. The more science and technology accelerate, the more critical creativity becomes—and, lame as American culture and institutions are, they seem better than most alternatives at fostering wide-ranging creativity. (The only cultures I’ve known that seemed maybe more creativity-friendly were Australia, New Zealand and Hungary. But those are small places, population-wise.)

There is loads of creativity in China, for instance, on a personal level. Very creative people. But I’m not sure the culture fosters creativity in the way that US culture does. Oriental culture seems to favor obedience a lot more than US culture, and creativity is often not compatible with obedience.... The US is probably the most anarchic major developed country—which has its downsides, especially for those below the poverty line in the US—but, it seems that anarchy and creativity are inextricably entwined.

If China evolves a culture of creativity, then Hugo will be proved right and this will become the Chinese century ... and maybe the Singularity will get launched in China (hey, maybe it will get launched there anyway via Hugo’s and my collaboration!!!)..... But that’s a big “if”, I suppose. Yet one feature of Chinese history is its tendency toward sudden, radical changes of one sort or another. Time will tell.

China: Science & Technology

Source

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/goertzel20080620/

IIT Bombay scales back foreign internships to encourage students to stay in India

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:43:32 -0700

Description

In a move designed to encourage engineering students to pursue careers and graduate degrees in India, IIT Bombay is starting to require some of its students to take internships with Indian companies, instead of going abroad.

IIT Bombay BTech and dual-degree programme students will not be able to opt for foreign internships from the academic year beginning 2008-09. As part of its course curriculum, the premier institute has decided to make it mandatory for students to enrol with an Indian company or institution for an internship if they want their course credits (the degree)....

IIT Bombay has around 1,335 BTech and 1,065 dual degree programme students. Over 60 per cent of these students go for foreign internships to pursue their PhD studies and take up research-related jobs at universities or to work with foreign companies.

While the universities include Georgia Tech, McGill, Ohio State, Southern California and Columbia, among others, labs/organisations include Corus Steel (UK), Suzuki Motors, Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Temasek Life Sciences, Microsoft and DaimlerChrysler.

"We want our students to see the excitement of engineering companies in India. We want our industry to see our exciting students. Thus for the mandatory part of their training, the students must go to Indian companies if they want their credits," Ashok Misra, Director, IIT Bombay, said.

He noted that the students were unaware of what was happening at Indian industries like Reliance, Bharat Forge and Tata Motors. "The industries in India are using state-of-the-art technology. When we ask the industry, they tell us the BTech students at IIT are not interested.

However, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, a recent IIT study concluded that "India’s engineering colleges remain primarily teaching institutions and have not evolved into vibrant research institutions because only a tiny percentage of engineering graduates opts to pursue master’s or doctoral degrees here."

Engineering & Design

Source

http://news.in.msn.com/business/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1430320
http://chronicle.com/news/article/?id=4581

Is America Broken?

William Gunn — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:33:21 -0700

Description

Abstract:

Is it just my imagination, or does the United States no longer seem to "work". For my entire lifetime, the US always set the international standard in virtually everything that matters: technology, wealth, health, safety, infrastructure, military power, transparency, governance, freedom, moral high-ground—and on and on and on. But in recent years, we’ve seen example after example which seems to demonstrate that this preeminence—this core competency in the areas that matter most—no longer exists.

Source

http://www.globalstrategywatch.com/archives/current-issue/is-america-broken

The emergence of post-scientific society?

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:03:11 -0700

Description

In a recent article in the NAS Issues, science policy expert Christopher Hill argues that the United States is shifting from a scientific to a post-scientific society. As he explains it,

A post-scientific society will have several key characteristics, the most important of which is that innovation leading to wealth generation and productivity growth will be based principally not on world leadership in fundamental research in the natural sciences and engineering, but on world-leading mastery of the creative powers of, and the basic sciences of, individual human beings, their societies, and their cultures.

Just as the post-industrial society continues to require the products of agriculture and manufacturing for its effective functioning, so too will the post-scientific society continue to require the results of advanced scientific and engineering research. Nevertheless, the leading edge of innovation in the post-scientific society, whether for business, industrial, consumer, or public purposes, will move from the workshop, the laboratory, and the office to the studio, the think tank, the atelier, and cyberspace.

There are growing indications that new innovation-based wealth in the United States is arising from something other than organized research in science and engineering. Companies based on radical innovations, exemplified by network firms such as Google, YouTube, eBay, and Yahoo, create billions in new wealth with only modest contributions from industrial research as it has traditionally been understood. Huge and successful firms like Wal-Mart, FedEx, Dell, Amazon.com, and Cisco have grown to be among the largest in the world, not as much by mastering the intricacies of physics, chemistry, or molecular biology as by structuring human work and organizational practices in radical new ways. The new ideas and concepts that support these post-scientific society companies are every bit as subtle and important as the fundamental natural science and engineering research findings that supported the growth of firms such as General Motors, DuPont, and General Electric in the past half century. But innovation in these two generations of firms is fundamentally different.

The piece is well worth reading, as it has a number of provocative implications for science policy, innovation policy, and education. Essentially, Hill is arguing that a decline in America's monopoly on science-- even if that does happen-- is not to be lamented any more than the shrinking of the agricultural workforce: it doesn't reflect a weakness, but a more fundamental shift to a different kind of economy, in which the sources of value aren't facts, but what you do with them.

Amateur, DIY, and citizen science

Source

http://www.issues.org/24.1/c_hill.html

Third World science and US innovation

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:58:48 -0700

Description

Gregg Zachary poses a provocative question in an article in the New York Times: "might cheap science from low-wage countries help keep American innovators humming?" The piece turns the conventional wisdom about the decline of American science on its head, and argues that the shrinking production of scientists reflects a basic-- but positive-- shift in the character of the American knowledge economy.

Americans have long profited from low-cost manufactured goods, especially from Asia. The cost of those material "inputs" is now rising. But because of growing numbers of scientists in China, India and other lower-wage countries, "the cost of producing a new scientific discovery is dropping around the world":...

American innovators — with their world-class strengths in product design, marketing and finance — may have a historic opportunity to convert the scientific know-how from abroad into market gains and profits.... By tapping relatively low-cost scientists around the world, American innovators may actually strengthen their market positions....

Precisely because the gap between basic science and commercial innovations is large, Mr. Hill’s postscientific society makes sense to innovators on the front lines. One implication for the future is that the United States "won’t have to import so many scientists," says Stephen D. Nelson, associate director of policy programs at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The association, which for decades has generally favored policies to expand the ranks of American scientists, is devoting a portion of its annual policy seminar next month to talk about the “postscience” situation.

Industry, meanwhile, is adapting to a world where scientific goods can come from anywhere — and fewer scientists work on abstract problems unrelated to the market. "It is no accident that many corporate labs have fallen apart," Sean M. Maloney, executive vice president of Intel, says. "They were science farms looking for problems."

If this argument is correct, it suggests that innovation policy shouldn't worry too much about declining science enrollments, as knowledge of basic science won't be so important in the information economy of the future. However, the challenge is to identify new areas and knowledge that will be important.

Science in the United States

Source

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/technology/20ping.html

'Glocal' approach makes global knowledge local

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 22:39:25 -0700

NOTE: This content was aggregated from RSS feed. Original source is http://www.scidev.net/en/science-communication/-glocal-approach-makes-global-knowledge-local.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_sciencecommunication

In SciDev.Net, Julia Tagüeña, a scientist at the Centro de Investigación en Energía, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, argues for the importance of localization strategies for science:

A glocal approach means presenting global knowledge within a local context that respects human rights. It encapsulates the concept 'think globally, act locally'....

Scientific methods — the search for facts and hidden patterns, data analysis, the criticism of peers — are assets to society. Science also debunks false fears and superstitions, such as concern about the dangers to a foetus during a solar eclipse. But if it is to further equity and tolerance, it should not be presented in a way that leads the reader or listener to conclude that science presents final and unalterable truth.

Glocalisation embraces both universal and local values, and places them in a familiar context. The term is useful because the struggle between globalisation and local cultures cannot be ignored. We have to find new ways to bring global knowledge to indigenous groups.... Respecting diversity and cultural differences without losing scientific rigour is a big challenge. Rational arguments should be presented in a way that takes into account the meaning that different societies accord natural phenomena. To increase their effectiveness, communicators need to recognise the existence of common cultural preconceptions....

If humankind is to survive on planet Earth, we must try to bring together two apparently opposite poles: global and local. Knowing our own society needs to be our main strength when communicating the global knowledge of science.

Part of what's interesting about this and other calls for localized approaches to science is that while in the past arguments about the socially or culturally constructed nature of science tended to be used to argue for a more egalitarian view of knowledge, today such views are just as likely to be used-- outside the West, at least-- as tactics for the assimilation of scientific knowledge in the developing world. In other words, the sociology of science is morphing from a tool to undercut the special claims of science, to a tool to appropriate scientific knowledge by those who've not benefited from it.

Managing Large Scientific Communities

Sabine Hossenfelder — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:49:23 -0700

Description

The community of scientists is increasing, becomes tighter connected, and more global. Under these circumstances, people working together face additional challenges that occur in large groups. They struggle to balance specialization versus diversity, collaboration versus competition, and have to avoid fallacies that large groups of people can run into when left without management. This problem is especially obvious in the academic world where management above the very local level is only slowly emerging in multi-institutional projects (that however come with an enormous bureaucratic effort).

These are points that have long been acknowledged and addressed by company leaders, but embarrassingly the academic world has not yet come to realize the scientific community needs a proper management to function efficiently, a way to provide incentives for researchers and their studies such that it does not hinder progress on the long run. As a consequence, presently lots of time and energy is wasted with self-supporting but progress-hindering behavior like hiring and selection processes that have become inappropriate (e.g. simply the increasing amount of applications is more demanding and tempts superficiality or reliance on personal connections), the time-scales on which funding is provided is in many areas very far off reality (in that writing reports about results all three months, or planning ahead for five years is a requirement that does not fit to the way science actually works) and the occurrence of pseudo-interesting areas that flourish because members of sub-groups provide themselves with positive feedback (as a highly discussed case study, see e.g. Lee Smolin, "The Trouble with Physics" Houghton Mifflin (2006)).

The sociology of science consists so far mostly of analytic studies, but practical advises and their implementation are badly needed. I therefore expect that the interest in this area will further increase in the next decade, and that new strategies to distribute funds and support researchers will have to be established.

Source

Saudi university recruits Singaporean university president

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:27:35 -0800

Description

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports:

The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia’s much anticipated $10-billion university, has announced the appointment of its first president, Choon Fong Shih. Mr. Shih, who is president of the National University of Singapore, will assume the task of creating from scratch what Saudi Arabia hopes will become one of the world’s leading research institutions....

While Shih is a Harvard-trained Ph.D., it's clear that he's being hired because KAUST wants to create a Middle Eastern equivalent of National University of Singapore-- a goal more modest and doable than recreating MIT, but still one that would bring substantial gains.

Kaust hopes that Mr. Shih can replicate in Saudi Arabia his experience in Singapore, where he was able to transform the National University into one of the world’s top 50 universities by building global networks for the university and links between academe and industry. His support for commercially lucrative research and his work with the Singaporean government on economic development will be helpful in accomplishing one of the new university’s stated goals of helping to diversify the Saudi economy away from dependence on oil revenue, as well as creating new jobs for the 30 percent of Saudi young people who are currently unemployed.

The university also hopes that Mr. Shih’s personal connections in both North America and Asia will help connect the university, and the country, with these two global hubs for science and technology. At the National University of Singapore, Mr. Shih focused on building 10 core programs, rather than all fields — a strategy that is in line with Kaust’s goal of focusing on four primary research areas to drive the university.

Another data-point, either encouraging or disturbing, that the world is starting to see viable alternatives to the U.S. model of higher education and research.

Source

http://chronicle.com/news/article/3744/new-saudi-university-appoints-first-president

Rethinking diaspora strategies

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:15:58 -0800

Description

Global Higher Ed analyzes a shift in government policy and strategy around expatriate knowledge workers.

Governments around the world are beginning to think about their expatriate populations in new ways. Rather than expatriate business, cultural, scientific and policy actors being understood as ‘lost’ to their countries of origin, active efforts are now being made to identify and link highly skilled offshore citizens to national economic development projects through initiatives such as formal mentoring programmes, international advisory boards, and investment programmes. Diaspora Strategies are most often found in those countries that have experienced ‘brain drain’ and so are having difficulty accessing the capital and skills needed to succeed in the global economy. Today these countries include not only the developing countries of the so-called ‘South’ in which diasporic relationships have long been part of development strategies, but also ‘middling’ developed countries of the so-called ‘North’ such as New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, Canada, Australia, Singapore and Ireland....

Today it is argued that ‘brain gain’ strategies [developed during the 1960s an 1970s to encourage expatriates to return home] have largely failed (World Bank 2005). Consequently many governments have begun to explore new policy measures that encourage expatriates to participate in their countries of origin without requiring them to return home.... [These measures have included] active mobilisation of expatriates through initiatives such as investment conferences, industry and sector specific web links, the creation of expert databases, direct appeals by national leaders, short term visits by academics, mentors and industry specialists, and the explicit targeting of financial, market and technical expertise. It is in this context that expatriate presence in all OECD countries has also been measured for the first time (Dumont and Lemaitre 2005).

Unlike earlier diasporic networks that privileged cultural and educational relationships (such as embassy groups and alumni programmes), the primary aim of the formal Diaspora Strategies is to facilitate the transfer of advice, technical skills, finance, and market knowledge (market standards, financial practices, corporate governance) allowing more ready access into offshore markets. There is an explicit discussion about the need for Diaspora Strategies to distinguish between ‘alumni models’ that involve mass mobilization and the ‘overachievers model’ that focus on elite actors and target those who can influence corporate investment and decision making processes. In many cases, efforts to use Diaspora Strategies to help build a ‘knowledge based economy’ are also explicitly linked to new understandings of the role of universities and the establishment of business incubators in which connections can be made between fledgling businesses and expatriate networks (Lalkaka 2003).

The rise of Diaspora Strategies is significant because it demonstrates how state agencies, policy makers and individual citizens themselves have begun to think beyond national borders and are make efforts to generate non-territorial forms of organisation.

Source

GlobalEurope Anticipation Bulletin on the future of international academic degrees

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:58:16 -0800

Description

GlobalEurope Anticipation Bulletin recently published a set of seven "anticipations about a key-field of the world's intellectual production, i.e. the value of international academic degrees," degrees "endowed with an intellectual, scientific and commercial worth acknowledged worldwide." Their conclusions are extremely sobering for American higher education:

1. In a changing world, prestigious academic degrees can also become high-risk investments.

[I]nvesting in a degree is a ten to twenty year-bet on the future, supposing that the thousands or tens of thousands Euros or Dollars invested today will generate ten or a hundred times more in revenues tomorrow.... [I]n one decade from now at most, some of today's world top academic degrees will have lost a lot of their value while people graduated from others will be heavily demanded by employers. Think of the degrees granted by those prestigious Soviet universities before 1989, whose degrees were not worth anything left in the 1990s.

2. The world of "prestigious degrees" suffers the same trends as the world altogether

On many aspects, trends within the world of "prestigious degrees" are similar to trends within the world altogether. After 1945, two super powers emerged, the United States and USSR, leading the elites from all over the world to organise their training processes around these two centres.... In the early 90s already, the entire communist academic system, centred on Moscow, was falling apart and the degrees so much appreciated only a few years before were not worth anything left on the market. Meanwhile, in just a few years time, Western Europe soon followed by the future (now new) Eastern and Central European member states, had refocused their academic exchanges on Europe, bilateral exchanges with the US thus shrinking away. In the mid-80s, nearly 90% of European students studying abroad went to the US; ten years later, in the mid 90s, this proportion had completely reversed with only 10% going to a US university and 90% going to another European country's university.

3. The US academic leadership lived its last years in the 90s: flows of foreign student coming to the US have been collapsing for 5 years already while they have progressed on a global level

Simultaneously, this dominant "foreign" orientation of large US universities, whose academic staff and students were less and less American, corresponded to a significant deterioration of the US educational system altogether.... [At the same time, the] development of a global European academic system centred on the strong inter-academic networks born from Erasmus resulted in a proliferation of partnerships between EU establishments and universities from other continents... Meanwhile Asia is becoming a prominent academic destination due to the growing importance of this continent on a global scale....

These statistical tendencies convey an important mid-term consequence in terms of the professional "value" of a degrees, i.e. "alumni networks" ; indeed they show that on a global scale, tomorrow's main "alumni networks" are being built outside the US (while it was the contrary in the past few decades). American students themselves tend to cross the Atlantic in large numbers in the opposite direction (compared to the years 1950-2000) (18).

Student visas to the US., 1998-2006: Number of student visas for the US between 1998 and 2006 (decrease: light green to dark green / increase: light blue to dark blue). Sources: Educationsector.org / US Department of State. (http://www.leap2020.eu/Value-of-international-academic-degrees-How-

4. The global systemic crisis involves a profound modification in future international elites' training requirements

These trends will keep on strengthening because the weakening of the US academic fabric is structural. It relates to the US loss in attractiveness in general and to the country's impoverishment, but it also relates to structural trends rooted in the emergence of a world different from the one created after 1945 whose global elites were trained by US universities all along the last six decades.

5. Eurasia (including Russia) at the heart of the world's academic excellence in the coming two decades

[T]oday's heavy trends (at least for another twenty years) put Europe and Asia at the centre of all upcoming scientific, technological and cultural tendencies. In the past twenty years, Europe gradually emerged as a "master" of trans-national networking and a champion of intercultural relations. This situation is clear throughout many academic fields, even in what used to be the US universities' exclusive preserve, i.e. the famous MBAs.

[At the same time,] a radical change has occurred as opposed to the last decades (and a return somehow to the birth of universities in medieval Europe): excellence can no longer belong to one specific institution but only to a network of academic institutions. The question each parent or student must ask him/herself in the coming years is not "Is this university reputable?", it s rather "With which reputable institutions does this university collaborate?", "What sort of common curricula has this university developed with institutions from other countries?". In the coming decades, international academic excellence will follow such roads.

6. Avoid falling victim of an academic degree "subprime crisis" in ten years time

Despite all these indicators, the dominant stance continues to consider that American universities are a world's "must".

7. Think twenty years ahead when investing in a "prestigious degree"

[In the future] it will cost you less and profit you more professionally [to study] in Europe than in the US. In Asia, new excellence clusters are proliferating, even though their interconnections are still limited and therefore their "network" added-value must still progress; however this limitation is compensated by the growing economic and geopolitical importance of the region. It is risky to invest in a US degree today as its value could diminish even further than it already has.

Africa: Science & Technology

Source

http://www.leap2020.eu/Value-of-international-academic-degrees-How-to-choose-today-an-international-degree-that-will-still-be-worth-something_a1...

Does Globalization of the Scientific/Engineering Workforce Threaten U.S. Economic Leadership?

Jess Hemerly — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:12:02 -0800

Description

Abstract:

This paper develops four propositions that show that changes in the global job market for science and engineering (S&E) workers are eroding US dominance in S&E, which diminishes comparative advantage in high tech production and creates problems for American industry and workers:

(1) The U.S. share of the world's science and engineering graduates is declining rapidly as European and Asian universities, particularly from China, have increased S&E degrees while US degree production has stagnated.

(2) The job market has worsened for young workers in S&E fields relative to many other high-level occupations, which discourages US students from going on in S&E, but which still has sufficient rewards to attract large immigrant flows, particularly from developing countries.

(3) Populous low income countries such as China and India can compete with the US in high tech by having many S&E specialists although those workers are a small proportion of their work forces. This threatens to undo the North-South pattern of trade in which advanced countries dominate high tech while developing countries specialize in less skilled manufacturing.

(4) Diminished comparative advantage in high-tech will create a long period of adjustment for US workers, of which the off-shoring of IT jobs to India, growth of high-tech production in China, and multinational R&D facilities in developing countries, are harbingers.

To ease the adjustment to a less dominant position in science and engineering, the US will have to develop new labor market and R&D policies that build on existing strengths and develop new ways of benefiting from scientific and technological advances in other countries.

Science in the United States

Source

Freeman, Richard B. "Does Globalization of the Scientific/Engineering Workforce Threaten U.S. Economic Leadership?." NBER Working Paper No. W11457, 2005.

Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future

Jess Hemerly — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:09:23 -0800

Description

Book description:

In a world where advanced knowledge is widespread and low-cost labor is readily available, U.S. advantages in the marketplace and in science and technology have begun to erode. A comprehensive and coordinated federal effort is urgently needed to bolster U.S. competitiveness and pre-eminence in these areas. This congressionally requested report by a pre-eminent committee makes four recommendations along with 20 implementation actions that federal policy-makers should take to create high-quality jobs and focus new science and technology efforts on meeting the nation's needs, especially in the area of clean, affordable energy:

1) Increase America's talent pool by vastly improving K-12 mathematics and science education;
2) Sustain and strengthen the nation's commitment to long-term basic research;
3) Develop, recruit, and retain top students, scientists, and engineers from both the U.S. and abroad; and
4) Ensure that the United States is the premier place in the world for innovation.

Some actions will involve changing existing laws, while others will require financial support that would come from reallocating existing budgets or increasing them. Rising Above the Gathering Storm will be of great interest to federal and state government agencies, educators and schools, public decision makers, research sponsors, regulatory analysts, and scholars.

Science in the United States

Source

"
Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future." Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (COSEPUP) and Policy and Global Affairs (PGA). National Academies Press, 2007,

Move over US -- China to be new driver of world's economy and innovation?

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:00:00 -0800

NOTE: This content was aggregated from RSS feed. Original source is http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/giot-mou012408.php

EurkeAlert reports on a Georgia Tech "study of worldwide technological competitiveness suggests China may soon rival the United States as the principal driver of the world's economy -- a position the US has held since the end of World War II."

The study’s indicators predict that China will soon pass the United States in the critical ability to develop basic science and technology, turn those developments into products and services – and then market them to the world. Though China is often seen as just a low-cost producer of manufactured goods, the new “High Tech Indicators” study done by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology clearly shows that the Asian powerhouse has much bigger aspirations.

“For the first time in nearly a century, we see leadership in basic research and the economic ability to pursue the benefits of that research – to create and market products based on research – in more than one place on the planet,” said Nils Newman, co-author of the National Science Foundation-supported study. “Since World War II, the United States has been the main driver of the global economy. Now we have a situation in which technology products are going to be appearing in the marketplace that were not developed or commercialized here. We won’t have had any involvement with them and may not even know they are coming.”

Georgia Tech’s “High Tech Indicators” study ranks 33 nations relative to one another on “technological standing,” an output factor that indicates each nation’s recent success in exporting high technology products. Four major input factors help build future technological standing: national orientation toward technological competitiveness, socioeconomic infrastructure, technological infrastructure and productive capacity. Each of the indicators is based on a combination of statistical data and expert opinions.

A chart showing change in the technological standing of the 33 nations is dominated by one feature – a long and continuous upward line that shows China moving from “in the weeds” to world technological leadership over the past 15 years.

The 2007 statistics show China with a technological standing of 82.8, compared to 76.1 for the United States, 66.8 for Germany and 66.0 for Japan. Just 11 years ago, China’s score was only 22.5. The United States peaked in 1999 with a score of 95.4.

Changes in Competitiveness, 1993-2007: Chart shows the change in technological standing for several nations from 1993 to 2007.

China: Science & Technology

"Made in USA" scientific innovation on the decline

Jerry Sheehan — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:55:14 -0800

Description

The last three years have seen increasing concern over the scientific and technological competitiveness of the United States vis a vis other industrialized and developing nations. These concern reached a zenith in 2006 with the publication of “Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future” by the National Academies of Science.[1]

Examining any number of objective metrics shows that the “times are a changing” when it comes to scientific discovery: A) PhDs in Science and Engineering: By 2010 the European Union will grant roughly 2 PhDs in Science and Engineering for every one American PhD [2]. B) Scientific Publications: Since 1998 there has been an increase in scientific publications with international co-authorship with the EU, Japan, China, and Asia becoming increasingly prolific. C) Patents: American inventors in 2002 accounted for 52% of all patents granted in the United States. However, foreign patent applicants grew from 44% (1996) to 48% (2003) [3].

While there are numerous reasons for these changes (increasing population size and focus on science and engineering in China and India, more supportive basic research agenda, tax credits, etc) the conclusion that scientific and technological innovation will become more globally distributed seems certain.

The decentralization of technological and scientific innovation poses clear economic challenges for the United States. As Adam Segal noted in his 2004 article “Is America Losing its Edge” in Foreign Affairs: “For 50 years, the United States has maintained its economic edge by being better and faster than any other country at inventing and exploiting new technologies.”

One of the primary reasons this competitive edge existed was because basic research conducted in American Universities was transferred quickly to from the lab bench to the marketplace by industry. There exists a unique synergy between public research and private sector markets in the United States that can perhaps best be demonstrated by looking at the interaction and leveraged public and private sector investment that occurred from 1965 to 2000 in the area of information technology (see attached graph from National Academy of Sciences, 2003).

So, what are the likely impacts of growing decentralization of scientific and technological innovation?

First, in the short term that there will be an almost xenophobic reaction to the loss of primary production of scientific discovery in the United States that will manifest itself in concern for national security. As the Task Force on American Innovation led by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich noted “A robust research portfolio is a necessary part of a national security strategy that relies on knowledge and technology to keep the United States safe in a dangerous world.” These concerns will lead to short-term increases in research funding domestically but these will be tempered by the Iraq war, record budget deficits, and the entitlement crisis.

Second, American Universities will become increasingly involved in international scientific projects and global research partnerships. This trend will become increasingly dynamic as global problems such as climate change become crisis on the research agenda at the same time that new research talent is being produced in Asia and India.

Third, and most importantly, the American marketplace will need to develop new mechanisms for benefiting from technological innovations that are not produced in the American marketplace [5]. In these regards, the United States still appears to have a competitive edge in understanding how basic academic research can lead to applied research with industry. Increasingly, as seen in the recent King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST) recruitment efforts, American universities will be targeted not just for their academic skills but also for insight into how to build sustainable models for technology transfer.

[1]NAS Gathering Storm Report, http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11463
[2] Richard Freeman, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2005.
[3]+ [4] National Science Board, National Science Indicators, 2006
[5] Richard Freeman, Does Globalization of the Scientific/Engineering Workforce Threaten U.S. Economic Leadership, July 2005, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=755693

Signals

Move over US -- China to be new driver of world's economy and innovation?

Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future

Does Globalization of the Scientific/Engineering Workforce Threaten U.S. Economic Leadership?

Mobile Phones and Economic Growth in the Developing World

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 11:10:30 -0700

Description

Mobile phones have the potential to spur economic growth, especially entrepreneurial business, in the Developing World.

Since 1979 the mobile phone has played a significant role in economic development in the West. However, the poorest countries of the global south are only now beginning to experience significant diffusion of mobile phone services. The potential for mobile phones to transform the economies of developing nations is exemplified by the Grameen Phone Company of Bangladesh, which has used micro-credit financing to rapidly and widely deploy a network of shared mobile phones rented by individual village entrepreneurs.

Over the next two decades, mobile telephone networks will reshape the African continent as countries that never had extensive telephone networks leap-frog into the wireless age. One recent study claims that a 10 percent increase in mobile phone density boosts GDP growth by 0.6 percent. Africa currently has just 8 mobile lines per 100 persons, but this has increased from just 3 per 100 in 2001. Over the next two decades, mobile phone networks may blossom in countries that never had extensive fixed-line networks. Thus will these countries "leap-frog" into the wireless age."

This will be enabled by:

Early indicators include:

"According to a New York Times article, from 1999 to 2004 mobile subscriptions in Africa jumped from 7.5 million to 76.8 million. [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/25/international/africa/25africa.html?%20ei=5088&en=cad54d043ab15f30&ex=1282622400&partner=rssny]
Vodafone releases a report arguing for the benefits of mobile telephony in Africa, linking it to GDP growth and foreign investment. [http://www.vodafone.com/africa]"

What to watch:

The selling of cell phone minutes through SMS as a form of micro-lending.

Signals

Offshoring of White-Collar Work Drives Globalization

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 11:10:30 -0700

Description

The next wave of global trade may be driven by a trend towards sourcing off-shore services and information-processing tasks that can be delivered electronically.

The first modern wave of globalisation, which drove economic growth during the 1990s, was largely based on deindustrialization in developed countries, and the re-location of manufacturing to Asia. China is today what Manchester was in the 18th century – the world's workshop. Advanced telecommunications systems allow close coupling of supply and demand into a single global system of production. While this phenomenon will continue to contribute to future growth, there are limits to its impact in the next 50 years – much of the potential has already been exploited.

However, the massive telecommunications capacity deployed in the 1990s is enabling a second wave of globalisation, but in service and information industries rather than manufacturing. To date, the two sectors most heavily affected have been software development and telephone-based customer service operations such as airline reservations. Over the next 20 years, firms in Western countries will begin to off-shore information analysis tasks to take advantage of wages that are 1/5 to 1/4 of their Western counterparts.

This trend may produce negative political backlash in the developed economies, which may experience significant labour market shocks, similar to those that affected its blue-collar workforce during deindustrialisation. For example, there are approximately 500,000 call-centre jobs in Britain alone that may be at risk in the next 20 years. However, off-shoring is a very successful strategy for global firms to increase their competitive edge through cost savings and many of these lost jobs will be replaced with new more highly-skilled positions. (Economist, 2004)

Implications:

Early Indicators:

What to Watch:

Parallels/Precedents:

Enablers/drivers:
* Global bandwidth glut, continued spread of English as dominant global business language, regulatory reform in India
* According to a major survey of economists' predicitions for the 21st century, approximately 90 percent predicted that globalization would proceed at least as fast as it did during the 1990s. Furthermore, half expect globalization to proceed at a faster rate than in the 1990s. (Pryor, 2000)