This webinar will cover the Role of Research and Technology Institutes (RTIs), Technological Competencies and Networking, State Financing and Lessons from International Experience.

The Role of Research & Technology Institutes

The main objective of this webinar serie is  to attract policy practitioners by providing real-time, cutting edge expertise on best practices in a number of innovation policy related subjects.

Technology

Tech News

Podcasting

Gadgets

Software How-To

Government & Organizations

Non-Profit

National

Regional

Local

This webinar will describe how RLabs leveraged the community and innovative approaches to drive social change in local communities in a number of African countries.

This webinar was created in partnership with the Innovation Policy Platform.

Grassroots Innovation for Social Change

In the last two decades, effectual entrepreneurship, a cognitive-theoretic approach to action in high-uncertainty environments, has been successfully implemented in universities around the world. This approach spells out particular lessons learned by expert entrepreneurs that can be taught in a classroom. In addition to university courses, efforts are under way to create programs for K-12 and in fields outside business, such as the arts, engineering, and social/public sector. For the webinar, Dr. Sarasvathy will elaborate on five specific policy implications based on effectual entrepreneurship. These can be summarized as follows: 
Teach entrepreneurship to everyone, not only to potential entrepreneurs
Collect data on exits
Focus on growing the middle class of businesses, not gazelles
Create an experienced entrepreneur corps of mentors
Learn to think about employment differently
Put simply, effectuation enables anyone and everyone to work with things already within their control to co-create a better future. For info on course content and supporting research: effectuation.org

Lessons from Expert Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurship Policy Makers

While climate change represents a massive threat to the planet and imperils progress made in economic development, it also represents an historic opportunity to innovate in large and rapidly growing markets. The World Bank estimates that climate-related sectors will garner $6.4 trillion in investment over the next decade in developing countries alone. The urgency for climate technology innovation is growing as the effects of climate change becomes a reality and more actions are implemented to address it. 

During this webinar, Jonathan Coony will discuss where the opportunities lie and what is creating them, how innovation in climate technology can be approached given the different sectors involved and the global scope of this issue. He will draw on country case studies to discuss approaches that are taken to create the needed innovation and examines new directions to develop useful and appropriate innovations that are needed to overcome the challenges of climate change.

Green Competitiveness

Historically, Schumpeterian developmental agencies at the periphery of the public sector have facilitated rapid restructuring by engaging in continuous, radical policy experimentation. During this presentation, Dr. Breznitz will argue that these development agencies are less likely to emerge in an increasing politicized environment. Endowing agencies with the authority and resources to administer cutting edge programs enables them to positively influence public and private sector routines, but reduces the likelihood that they develop transformative new initiatives. By contrast, reducing an agency’s profile and resources to the point where it has the flexibility to develop radically new ideas risks marginalizing it within national policy debates.

After briefly reviewing the history of the Finnish National Fund for Research and Development and the Israeli Office of the Chief Scientist, Dr. Breznitz will focus on the performance of three newly established innovation agencies, Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovative Systems (VINNOVA) and Ireland’s Policy Advisory Board for Enterprise and Science (Forfás).

The Role of Research & Technology Institutes

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