(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-01-03)
Cozzens, Susan E.
Global inequality is a changing phenomenon molded by a variety of interlocking dynamic forces. Technological change is one of these. If we picture the world system as a cross-tabulation of nation states and technological capabilities, we see a core of advanced and advancing nations, a small set of countries rapidly developing their capabilities, and a large number of countries struggling to maintain or build (Sagasti 2004). These groups correspond roughly to the economic hierarchy of nations, in which only four countries have moved into the top group in the last five decades: South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong (Milanovic 2005). It is no accident that these four are also the models constantly offered for technology-based economic development.
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008)
Cozzens, Susan E.
Inequality is an important global challenge. Inequalities between countries are
growing. While some poor countries are rapidly expanding their economies, others are
stuck at a low level and the gap is therefore widening between countries. Inequality is
also growing within many countries, including affluent ones. Inequalities in basic needs
such as food and water violate human rights as identified by the international community.
An inequality is a barrier – a steep differential that someone must scale to achieve
his or her full potential. Human progress as a whole is therefore hampered by
inequalities, which keep our efforts from adding up to all they could. This happens
through vertical inequalities, differences between individuals and households generated
by the structure of the economy, and through horizontal inequalities, differences by
culturally-defined categories like gender, ethnicity, and religion.
Why talk about inequalities in the context of science, technology, and innovation
(STI) policies? On the one hand, STI policies link directly to basic needs, when they deal
with food, health, and the environment – all topics that are virtually universal on national
STI policy agendas. On the other hand, STI policies link indirectly to inequalities in
income when they affect the dynamics of economic growth. STI policy practitioners
think of their work as providing a public benefit, but any public intervention can
contribute to cumulative advantage if it is more accessible to the members of society who
have greater resources. Public interventions, including STI policies and programs, need
to be specifically designed to reach disadvantaged groups if they want to be
redistributive.
My colleagues and I distinguish three types of redistributive policies: (1) Pro-poor
policies aim to reduce poverty or alleviate its conditions. (2) Fairness policies work on
eliminating horizontal inequalities, e.g. by gender or race. (3) Egalitarian policies attempt
to reduce vertical inequalities, through economic activities that increase income for
people in the middle of the distribution. I illustrate each type here, drawing on a mix of
research, human resource, and innovation policies from the STI realm.
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007-12-10)
Feller, Irwin; Cozzens, Susan E.
Dr. John Marburger’s recent calls for a new science of science policy open up new opportunities to reconceptualize, retest, and revise as needed the theories, models, descriptions, and mainstream propositions underlying United States’ science and innovation policies and programs.
We respond to these calls by presenting a research agenda directed at two objectives. First, as academic researchers who have long worked in the field of science and innovation policy, albeit from different analytical and disciplinary perspectives, we seek to insure that efforts to promote the "science" of science and technology, or innovation policy produce substantive scholarly work that in fact advances our fundamental understanding of underlying processes. Second, as participants in numerous U.S. and international science and innovation policy advisory forums and commissions, we seek to promote a closer, better fitting, coupling between the research communities who are addressing questions of the science of science policy -- themselves a disparate disciplinary lot -- with the policy communities who are seeking improved understandings of whether or how the decisions they have made or are being called upon to make in fact have led to the intended results. Our strategy to achieve these two objectives is to identify questions that are simultaneously intellectually challenging and policy relevant.