THE governments of South Korea and Australia have recognized that science-and-technology (S&T) innovations are essential to long-term national growth. Both are working to build collaborative ecosystems, where creativity and innovation can flourish.
To revitalize her country’s creative economy, South Korean President Park Geun-hye recently pledged that “innovation centers” would be established in key cities and provinces. In an innovation center, local startups tie up with large conglomerates to use new technologies in opening new businesses.
An innovation center linked to technology powerhouse Samsung Group was opened in Daegu City this month, which Samsung said was set up in partnership with the Daegsu local government. It also established a fund worth $19.2 million over the next five years as seed capital for promising local tech firms.
Last week Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced that his government will devote up to AUS$400 million to a plan that will boost his country’s national competitiveness by better linking academic research and development (R&D) to industry.
A total of AUS$188 million will be used to develop “industry-growth centers,” where researchers and research institutions will be partnered with industry. Some AUS$60 million will be used as seed capital for select ideas with the highest commercial potential.
Australia’s new competitiveness agenda also includes the formation of the Commonwealth Science Council, which will discuss and chart the S&T priorities of the country. Council members will include the ministers of industry, education and health; the Australian chief scientist; five business leaders; and five top scientists and researchers.
Last month the Asian Development Bank and the Economist Intelligence Unit launched the Creative Productivity Index, a new system for rating a country’s capacity for innovation.
The report underscored how a supportive ecosystem for innovation and creativity is the foundation for long-term economic growth, while the lack of it consigns a country’s future to mediocrity.
The report ranked South Korea and Australia as third and eighth, respectively, out of 24 countries; the Philippines, meanwhile, was put at dismal 18th place. Where the South Korean and Australian governments are taking the lead, the Philippine government appears lethargic and laid back in the creativity and innovation game, despite our abundant talents in such fields.
Like an orchestra in an R&D concert, the government should play the proactive conductor. But because of a clueless government, Dr. Joel Cuello, a Filipino scholar based in the University of Arizona, wrote that there is no such “orchestrated arrangement among public, private and academic partners.”
In 2011 the Congressional Commission on Science & Technology and Engineering I headed launched several “innovation clusters,” which the commission, led by Executive Director Dr. Greg Tangonan, put together and the Senate Finance Committee funded.
An innovation cluster is a tripartite consortium of government, industry and academe designed to come up with practical applications of R&D outputs, both national and international. In layman’s language, this is an effort to introduce public-private partnerships for S&T and R&D, two areas that are crucial to the country’s development and sustainability.
The pilot innovation clusters were on algae research and commercialization, remote sensing, information- and communications-technology development, disaster science and management, and responsible mining.
All these Philippine initiatives were even ahead those of South Korea and Australia. The big difference was that their governments took the lead.
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