S&T Priorities: Towards a Taxonomy of Policy Models

1. S&T Priorities:Towards a Taxonomy of Policy Models Manuel Mira Godinho (ISEG/UTLIsbon) João Caraça (Gulbenkian Foundation) Presentation to the Tampere 6 June 2008

2. Structure of the Presentation Part 1  “Priority Setting in S&T” Part 2  Analysis of different national priorities in S&T

3. Objectives • What are and how are S&T priorities defined by different countries?

4. What “Priority-setting in S&T” is? A process of strategic nature that aims at: • increasing the returns on public investments in research • increasing the relevance of research for economic objectives (competitiveness, growth, welfare…) • linking research with a society’s long-term aims

5. Examples of past S&T priorities • Nuclear bomb (Manhattan project) • Jet aircraft (Germany 2nd WW Luftwaffe) • Reach the moon before 1970 (Kennedy ad.) • Cancer Cure (Nixon administration) • Nuclear power for energy production • TGV

6. Priority Areas • Military • Health • Energy • Transportation • … • Food

7. Technological (practical) priorities… • All previous examples (bombs, planes, trains…) are “practical priorities” • They relate to “needs” or “practical objectives” (such as furthering technological competitivess of a country) …versus Research (scientific) priorities

8. Research Priorities • Governments  in many countries most of the R&D is carried out with government funds • Two questions: How much to allocate to R&D? How to allocate those funds?

9. Allocation of public resources to research • What are the priorities of public spending in research? • How are they set? • What sort of mechanims are used for that purpose? • How is the decision-making process shaped? • Who are the intervenients?

10. 1. What are the priorities of public investment in research? • Qualitative Priorities (Excellency, Internationalization…) versus “areas” • Balance Basic versus Apllied R&D (balance “technological” versus “scientific” priorities) • Define prioritary areas: • Which disciplines to prioriatise? • Which “end-products” to favour? • Seeking shorter-term or longer-term impacts?

11. 2. How are research priorities set? • Priorities can be implicit (stemming from past decisions, no formalisation…) • Priorities can be explicit (formal mechanims to formulate them exist and the process of priority setting is recognised as such)

12. 3. What sort of mechanims are used for priority setting? • Government (with the help of civil service); • Consultative and advisory bodies (higher S&T council; research councils…); • Other participatory mechanisms (conferences; clustering initiatives; foresight initiatives) “Top down” versus “bottom-up”

13. 4. How is the decision-making process shaped? Institutional setting • Is there a national “vision” about the future? Does that vision comprehends research? • Do business firms know what they want out of the research? Do they have the capacity to influence the national research agenda? • Do the military have similar capacity? • Does civil society (NGOs…) has mechanisms to affect the research agenda?

14. 5. Who are the stakeholders? • Government, Business, Military, NGOs + • Parliament • Media • International organisations + • Scientists (Big research institutes; disciplines; influential individuals…)

15. Is priority setting in S&T on the policy agenda? • Interest on “priority setting” has changed over time • It used to be an important issue • For some time dominated the view that governments had no capacity to define “priorities” and that they should limite to provide conditions for an “excellent research” • More recently: Renewed interest • Foresight exercises etc

16. Part 2 (WIP) • Publication and R&D Patterns • Cluster Analysis • Results coherent

17. 3 steps • 1st step: Analysis of Scientific Publications • 2nd step: Analysis of SP + Socio-Economic objectives of Public Spending in R&D • 3rd step: Analysis of SP + SEO + Weight of government financed R&D on GERD

18. 1st step: Analysis of Scientific Publications • “Health Papers”  Medicine, Biomedical Sciences, Other Health Sciences, Biology • “E&T Papers”  Engineering & Technology Papers, Physics, Chemistry, Mathmatics

19. CLUSTER 1 CLUSTER 2

20. STEP 1 CLUSTER 1

21. CLUSTER 2

22. 2nd step: Analysis of SP + Socio-Economic Objectives of Public Spending in R&D • SEO? 1) Military R&D (Defence) 2) Civil R&D: Economic Development Health Space Non-Oriented Funds General University Funds (NOF + GUF)

23. 3 big clusters 8 smaller clusters E1 C1 E2 E3 C2 E4 E5 E6 C3 E7 E8

25. Health Targeted Research Academic Research Engineering & Technology

26. Health Targeted Research Academic Research Engineering & Technology

27. Health Targeted Research Academic Research E6 UK, France, Sp E3 Australia, Can,NZ, Finl, Ir, Be, E2 NL, Dk, No, Sweden, Iceland Defence + Space 7% Defence + Space 6% US Defence + Space 45% Engineering & Technology Korea E4 Czech R, Slovak R, J, PT E1 Germany, It, Austria, Switz., Greece, Mex, Russia

28. 3rd step: Analysis of SP + SEO + Weight of government financed R&D on GERD • Government financed R&D / GERD ? [ 1 – (Government Financed R&D/GERD) ] ≈ Private financing of GERD  The lower… the higher innovation propensity (Y? N?)  The higher … the higher academic R&D (Y? N?)  The higher…the higher military innovation (Y? N?)

29. G2 G1 G3 G4 G5

30. Targeted Research Health Academic Research Engineering & Technology

31. Targeted Research Health Academic Research 67% 64% 69% 51% 39% Private financing of R&D R > 55% ; B < 55% Engineering & Technology

32. Targeted Research Health Academic Research G2 Icel, NL, No, Austria, DK, Switz, Sweden 67% G3 Australia, Canada, NZ, Finl, Irel, BE, J, K G4 US, Fr, UK, Sp 64% 69% 51% G1 PT, Sl R, Greece, It, Cz R, G, Mex 39% Engineering & Technology Private financing of R&D R > 55% ; B < 55% G5 Russia

34. Next Steps • Include more variables (?) • Include more countries (?) • Develop quantitative analysis • Survey of Experts • What questions to ask the experts?

35. END Thank you!