Andreas Stamm Eva Dantas Doris Fischer Sunayana ... - ETH Zürich

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Andreas Stamm et al.
ternational as well as local markets. Contrary to what has happened in the case of earlier
success stories (Korea, Taiwan), market liberalisation today does restrict selective
infant industry protection policies or market reservation policies.
— International regulations also affect the possible ways and forms in which technologically
relevant knowledge is appropriated. For instance, stricter IPR protection regimes
severely restrict the options for reverse engineering and copycat strategies.
— The scope for technology and innovation policy is also affected by other new “rules
of the game” established within the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework. Instruments
of industrial policy, common in many developing countries in the past,
have largely been ruled out, including efforts to link local companies to Foreign Direct
Investment (FDI) by imposing local content requirements.
On the other hand, the shift towards a globalising knowledge economy also opens up new
opportunities for countries in the process of catching up, and these were not equally
available for early movers:
— Technology development and innovation can fall back on huge stocks of available
information and knowledge, in part in the public domain and accessible through ICT.
— Technology corporations are increasingly relocating knowledge-intensive activities to
some developing countries, either in order to access human resources or to be present
where demand for technology-based products is growing at a rapid pace.
— Research organisations and companies in developing countries have the opportunity
to tap into global networks (e.g. in the context of EU Framework Programmes) and/or
to contract specialised human resources, allowing them to access high-end know-how
and merge it with locally generated knowledge.
— Developing countries can learn from experiences in OECD countries regarding effective
technology policy and instruments, thus shortening learning processes and minimising
the risks of costly innovation policy failures.
Comparison of these two bodies of argument, gives rise to some important research questions.
Does globalisation make the formation of IS easier or more difficult? Do pathways
exist to short-cut learning processes and the related build-up of technological
capabilities? Do the changes in framework conditions impact on the specific features
of IS in anchor countries, e.g. in terms of the mix of national and international access
to specific knowledge?
SoIS formation in anchor countries: a promising approach to catching technologically?
We may conclude from the innovation system literature that anchor countries may enjoy
some advantages in the development of sustainability-oriented innovations, or at least
that the possibility for technological catching-up may be greater here than in more commercial
technologies:
— Technological learning is a cumulative process. This implies that the lead of industrialised
countries is very significant in old industries, especially where different fields
of expertise need to be combined in developing a new artefact (e.g. in the automotive
industry). In sustainability innovations, the underlying core technologies are often still
in flux (e.g. non-silicon-based photovoltaics) or rather simple (wind turbines), lowering
the entry barriers for latecomers.
German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)