Abstract
The locations of knowledge centers—those geographic and institutional places where innovation is most likely to occur—are not evenly spread across the globe. There is no reason to think they should be, but as UNESCO (2011) reports, there is striking evidence of the persistence—expansion even—in the uneven distribution of research and innovation at the global level. This chapter focuses on challenges associated with making useful knowledge truly and universally accessible.
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- 1.
The World Bank Institute (WBI) defined a knowledge-based economy as consisting of the following: (1) An economic and institutional regime that provides incentives for the efficient use of existing knowledge and the creation of new knowledge and entrepreneurship, (2) an educated and skilled populace that can create and use knowledge, (3) a dynamic information infrastructure that can facilitate the effective communications, dissemination, and processing of information, (4) an effective innovation system comprising a network of firms, research centers, universities, consultants, and other organizations that can tap into the growing stock of global knowledge, assimilate and adapt it to local needs, and create new knowledge and technology (Dahlman and Aubert 2001).
- 2.
The choice of case study subjects was made in consultation with the World Bank and with country representatives to ensure that the selections constituted examples of sectors that could benefit from an improved S&T infrastructure and capacity. The subsectors were chosen based upon relevance to national development needs, availability of data, and the presence of companies that could be approached for interviews. Interview subjects were chosen based upon their depth of knowledge of the scientific or technical aspects of the case study subject. Efforts were made to interview people within industry or professional associations. Priority was given to firms that were owned and operated by local businesspeople. Foreign direct investors were also interviewed when their input would increase our understanding of the sectors’ dynamics.
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Wagner, C.S. (2018). Local Innovation and the Global Network. In: The Collaborative Era in Science. Palgrave Advances in the Economics of Innovation and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94986-4_8
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