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

Andreas Stamm et al.
On the other hand, specific setbacks and potential barriers can be identified that could
hinder the development of SoIS, specifically in developing countries. For instance, while
they are increasingly strong global players, anchor countries are still characterised by high
levels of poverty. Governments achieve their legitimacy mainly by delivering social progress,
i.e. employment creation and poverty reduction, and not so much by improving the
environmental quality of the growth process or lowering the carbon footprint of the economy.
This would imply that the resources dedicated to the environmental dimension of
sustainable development might be directly competing with other efforts that may, in many
countries, be given higher political priority. This refers not exclusively to the financial
resources but also to the human resources available at the policy making and management
levels of the societies concerned, as the shaping and monitoring of SoIS require especially
high governance capacities and implementation capabilities.
It thus appears to be an open research question whether the balance of advantages
and disadvantages is positive or negative when it comes to assessing whether sustainability-oriented
innovations are a viable opportunity for anchor countries to reach a
technological par with the OECD world. Coming up with an answer to this question is,
however, of crucial importance in assessing the possible contribution of anchor countries
and their innovation systems to the transition towards more sustainable development paths
and strategic options for international cooperation in this context.
5.3 Towards global innovation systems for sustainability?
Globalisation is obviously affecting the generation of knowledge and the development and
deployment of technologies. The number of internationally co-authored scholarly papers is
continuously increasing, including papers with the participation of researchers from developing
and anchor countries. International research networks are emerging, triggered by
special funding arrangements, such as the EU Framework Programmes, in which partners
in the South are invited to participate. Whereas in the past international cooperation in
science and technology was mainly shaped by interests and decisions of individual researchers
or organisations, international cooperation in publicly funded research is increasingly
organised in keeping with deliberate political strategies. One example is the
Strategy for Internationalisation of Science and Research approved by the German cabinet
in February 2008.
Internationalisation is also affecting private sector R&D, mainly through the relocation of
knowledge-intensive activities by technology-based companies. It is still a matter of debate
how these internationalisation processes proceed and to what extent they also involve
non-traditional actors such as anchor countries. 23
New international discourses are emerging on how the formation of global innovation
systems that may assist the transition towards more sustainable development patterns can
be shaped by policy makers. These are mainly triggered by an increasing awareness of the
severity of climate change and other global challenges (energy, food security) and the urgent
need to decouple economic growth from emissions and resource depletion. It seems
23 See Altenburg / Schmitz / Stamm (2007) for China and India.
36
German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)