The Coastal System of Northeastern North Carolina
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5
pages
English
Documents
Le téléchargement nécessite un accès à la bibliothèque YouScribe Tout savoir sur nos offres
- cours - matière potentielle : thirteen
- cours - matière potentielle : students
- cours - matière potentielle : eleven
- cours - matière potentielle : ten
- cours - matière potentielle : sixteen
- cours - matière potentielle : fifteen
- cours - matière potentielle : fourteen
- cours - matière potentielle : julia alspaugh
- students teachers schools julia alspaugh
- perquimans county
- students about brand
- student lessons
- coastal processes
- sea
- teachers
- 2 teachers
- students
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Langue
English
PART FIVE
CONCLUDING SESSION
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The concluding session began with a closing address by Mr. Endang Sukara, the Vice Chairman of LIPI. He expressed confidence that all the delegates to the Forum would have learnt from the experts and from each other valuable lessons about a wide range of issues associated with innovation system, which they would be able to convey to the decision-makers in their respective countries to aid in the formulation of the most appropriate governance mechanism of national innovation systems (NIS). In the two days of the Forum the delegates were successful in highlighting important diverse aspects of NIS governance, Mr. Sukara remarked.
While Indonesia is enjoying a stable political situation and has become the third largest democracy in the world, it continues to face several challenges that require innovative solutions, Mr. Sukura reminded the gathering. For instance, the natural resources-driven economic growth tends to be in conflict with environmental stability, and this is an area that should receive close attention from scientists. Science and technology (S&T)-based innovation system is thus important to Indonesia’s development.
Mr. Sukura said that the Asia-Pacific countries have great potential to chart out new directions for better NIS governance, while also adopting measures to mitigate global climate change, which is threatening to be the key issue that the world will face in the coming years.
After listing the important conclusions of the Forum, Mr. Sukura officially announced the closure of the Forum after thanking APCTT-ESCAP, experts, delegates and the Organizing Committee for the successful conduct of the event.
Mr. Ramanathan, Head of APCTT-ESCAP, then presented his concluding remarks. He expressed sincere thanks to ESCAP and LIPI for making the Forum possible and bringing it to a successful conclusion. He also thanked the resource persons and experts from Indonesia for sharing their expertise and experiences with the participants and guiding the conduct of the Forum. He thanked all the representatives from the participating countries for their active involvement in the Forum.
Mr. Ramanathan extended special thanks and appreciation to LIPI – particularly to Mr. Lukman Hakim, the Chairman, Mr. Endang Sukara, the Vice Chairman, and all other senior functionaries – for hosting the Forum and extending warm hospitality to all participants. He concluded by extending his gratitude for the assistance that Mr. Dudi Hidayat, Ms. Wati Hermawati and all others of LIPI who wholeheartedly provided support to ensure the successful organization of the Forum.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Five important governance issues were identified from the presentation of participant countries, as shown below, and during the discussions, the resources persons and other experts suggested certain steps to address those issues. 1. Realizingthe national vision through S&T It is important for each country to identify and focus on a few key areas of science and technology (S&T) that can help to realize its own national vision. Though many countries have evolved various approaches, guiding the structure of a national innovation system (NIS) to move towards an efficient and knowledge-based economy through S&T continues to be a challenge. It is also important for countries
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to foster regional innovation systems and harmonize it with the NIS. The development and nurturing of high-tech enterprises, in carefully selected areas, that could compete globally and become engines of growth was identified as a key challenge in many of the participating countries. A related aspect is about the national vision itself, which needs to be one that is based on a detailed and frank assessment of the nation’s strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities and threats that the nation could face in the foreseeable future. The vision, rather than being a set of lofty ideals and high-sounding sentiments, must be down to earth and based on pragmatic considerations. Its framework should be implementable and its missions reachable. The political and economic policies practised by the nation should aid and not hinder the realization of its vision. 2. RevitalizingR&D and institutional linkages to foster innovation Most developing countries have financial constraints; funding available for initiating research and development (R&D) is particularly limited. Nevertheless, in several government research institutes (GRIs), funding allocations are not in consonance with national priorities. Therefore, there is a need to rationalize and prioritize R&D areas in GRIs. The challenge before governments would be to maintain a balanced science base, while prioritizing certain areas. Governments could also earmark a portion of the overall R&D budget for GRIs, thus removing their annual funding uncertainties. Furthermore, strengthening of linkages between R&D institutes, universities and the industry continues to be weak in most developing countries and the use of such linkages in fostering innovation remains a challenge. In this regard, the use of public-private partnerships (PPPs) and the nurturing of trust and faith between the private sector and GRIs are critically important. Linkages such as PPP become effective when the objectives are clear, the methods practical and the goals achievable. Governments could also create and fund a new type of “incubator”, an entity for a related industry cluster that would bring together best talents from both academic and scientific institutions and provide them with the infrastructure required for innovation. This would be one way to ensure a productive academe-research institute-industry linkage. Another way to strengthen such linkages is to ensure that they are revenue-generating or even profitable. Certain facilitating measures by government, such as making obtaining research grants easier for research institutes if the industry is involved, would also help effect sustained linkages among the different stakeholders. 3. Developmentof human resources and skills In addition to the development of human resources and skills, the identification and deployment of promising researchers in priority areas of research are critical in realizing the outcome of NIS. The role of skill development is crucial in matching the current and future S&T needs, as well as in inculcating a result- and market-oriented mindset among researchers. The issue of developing and sustaining S&T culture at the national level has remained an issue in many participating countries. One prominent feature of this is the small pool of skilled technical personnel. The comparatively low social status accorded to technicians is a major reason for the low number of people choosing technicians’ trade as a profession. Countries that have internalized S&T culture accord a high social status to technicians, and the participating countries need to adopt policy and political measures that would bring this about. It is critical for an innovation
system to elevate the level of skilled technical personnel, and to ensure cohesion between such technical personnel and other S&T personnel such as scientists and engineers. 4. Financialsupport Funding of innovation from mind to market requires different types of approaches and institutions as the level of funding and the risk associated with it varies. Access to funds for innovations that have long gestation periods and those with high risk but high socio-economic impact are two major issues to be addressed by govern-ments of the Asia-Pacific region. In this regard, a study of best practices and lessons learned could be initiated by APCTT-ESCAP and disseminated during national workshops. 5. Supportmechanisms and capacity building for SMEs Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) form a substantial part of the industry in most of the participating countries. Recognizing the inherent limitations and challenges faced by SMEs, effective policies and support mechanisms have to be evolved in the following areas: (a) absorption and assimilation of technology; (b) support mechanisms that are easily accessible and have a robust and multi-pronged reach-out programmes; (c) holistic intellectual property rights services; and (d) affordable standardization, testing and related services.
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