Implementing and fine-tuning business R&D policies in developing countries
Jorge Niosi, UQAM, Canada Research Chair in Technology Management
In most developing and emerging countries the public and quasi-public organizations such as government laboratories, universities and public corporations conduct the bulk of R&D efforts. The private sector is mostly absent. Reasons are many: natural resources industries are often the backbone of the production and trade systems and these are not intensive in R&D. Traditional small and medium-sized enterprises are also overwhelmingly important in the manufacturing sector, again, with little involvement in innovative activities. The private informal sector is often a substantial part of the economy, again one that is hardly intensive in R&D. Also, the public mood accepts more easily that government finances public research activities than private ones. Last but not least, the government bureaucracies that are supposed to design, implement and evaluate these policies are often badly paid, and suffer from low skills, high turnover and corruption.
Yet, the implementation of these business R&D policies is an essential part of the development effort. Only countries that have been able to apply them have developed into fully industrial nations (Niosi, 2010). The paper proposes some practical key measures to start thinking on how to put these policies in the public agenda.
About the speaker
Prof. Jorge Niosi obtained his PhD in Paris in 1973. He is Professor in the Department of Management and Technology at the Université du Québec à Montréal and Research Chair on the Management of Technology, Canada, since 2001. He is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of 15 books published in Argentina, Canada, France, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as some 60 articles in referred journals. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada since 1994. He has been visiting scholar at Stanford University, visiting Professor at the Université de Paris, Fulbright Fellow, and he has received several awards. His work is widely cited.
Venue: Room C -1.09, School of Business and Economics
Date: 25 October 2011
Time: 12:30 - 13:30 CET
