How do Rising Powers Shape Global Innovation?

On 6-7 October 2016, the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research and the ESRC Rising Powers and Interdependent Futures programme hosted a thematic workshop to discuss the roles of rising powers in shaping global innovation. Our policy brief summarises the findings and practical implications that come out of different projects under the ESRC programme working on the theme of innovation.

How do Rising Powers Shape
 Global Innovation?

Overall, the research findings discussed at the workshop underline that the Rising Powers, such as China, India, and Russia, represent one of the key drivers of global economic and social change today. Notwithstanding recent short-run fluctuations in economic growth, these Rising Powers are becoming increasingly important players in global innovation. Non-Western models of innovation challenge Western approaches to research and development in some areas, but also offer opportunities for research cooperation and technology transfer.

The emergence of Rising Powers as global players in key technologies, but also the need to look more closely at the differences between them, can be seen from the findings of our project on Innovation Systems Development in China and Russia. Both China and Russia have undergone periods of market reform and developed new strategic goals for their innovation policies that show some parallels, for instance in the field of nanotechnology. Despite these similarities China appears to be more clearly on a path to becoming a world-leading country on innovation than Russia. For the UK, innovation developments in China, as well as in other Rising Powers countries, can present new collaboration opportunities although they also heighten competition for leadership and global market success in emerging and advanced technologies. 

This is also apparent from the research presented by our project at King’s College London on state strategiesof governance in global biomedical innovation in China and India. The emergence of bioinformatics, meaning tools that make biology legible with the help of computer science, is changing the way science works. This opens new opportunities for Rising Power countries to establish themselves in this new territory. Western models of innovation have dominated global research on bioinformatics, but increasing engagement of Rising Powers such as China and India in the area of bioinformatics could challenge established norms and practices of research in Western countries. Effective regulation of biomedical research in the UK needs to take into account stem cell therapy in countries such as China and India, different emerging national and international governance approaches for innovation, as well as data and incentives issues. 

Finally, looking beyond the Rising Powers’ impact on developed country innovation systems, their investment in innovation offers opportunities for South-South technology transfer and addressing key global development challenges such as climate change. Our project based at SOAS explores these dynamics in its comparativestudy of Chinese hydropower dams in Africa and Asia. Findings show that Chinese investment into low carbon energy in developing countries offers opportunities for technology transfer and mitigation of climate change. In addition, its development impact could be further enhanced by strengthening social safeguards and environmental impact assessments. Watch the video on the project's findings here:

As a collection, our projects show that the Rising Powers’ engagement in innovation has a profound impact beyond their borders, both in the UK and globally. Within the UK, policies on research and innovation need to take innovation dynamics in countries such as China, Russia, and India into account to be effective. Globally, innovation and technology transfer from the Rising Powers has the potential to address key policy challenges such as climate change, provided that social and economic side effects of South-South investment projects are dealt with effectively.

For more details, please refer to the full thematic policy brief on 'How do Rising Powers shape Global Innovation?' produced by the ESRC Rising Powers and Interdependent Futures programme. 

For a more general overview of the findings of all 12 research projects under the Rising Powers and Interdependent Futures programme, please have a look at our briefing on 'How do Rising Powers Drive Global Change?'.

Bioinformatics in the UK, India and China

By Brian Salter, Yinhua Zhou and Saheli Datta

Bioinformatics has recently been recognised in the UK as a ‘huge priority for government’ with the ‘potential to drive research and development, increase productivity and innovation and ultimately transform lives.’ (UK Medical Research Council, 2014). While there is wide agreement among nations regarding the importance of bioinformatics, there is little consensus over possible pathways for maximising its contribution to the life sciences. A recent paper by Salter, Zhou and Datta (2015) explores the extent to which bioinformatics have become a strategic priority for India, China and the UK, and how these efforts are shaping or are in turn being shaped by the existing norms, rules and institutions in the global lifesciences.

Bioinformatics is the combination of knowledge, skills and techniques of biology made 'readable' with computer science, statistics and mathematics. The traditional view of the role of mathematics and computer science in bioinformatics was that of a 'means' to the end of capturing and understanding increasingly data-intensive biological knowledge production e.g. as with genomic data. However, in the last few years a more balanced view has emerged that considers computer science and mathematical tools as both the object and instrument of knowledge production. Leonelli’s (2012: 2) comment that ‘data-intensive methods are changing what counts as good science’- is perhaps nowhere more relevant today than in bioinformatics where the tug-of-war for primacy between two disparate branches of science (mathematics and biology) has become increasingly polarized.

For nations, in particular emerging economies, these spaces of rapidly advancing technology, uncertainty and political tensions that sit uncomfortably within the hegemonic norms, rules and institutions in the global lifesciences increasingly represent spaces of future growth and opportunities for catching up with the west. For emerging economies, the ensuing shift from ‘developmental state’ into what has been described as the ‘adaptive state’ and the ‘transformative state’ signals the opportunity to shape global lifesciences according to their national interests (Kim, 1999; Salter, 2009a; Wu, 2004; Wong, 2005). For the west, the changing nature of ‘science’ and simultaneously the changing role of emerging economies’ participation in global sciences, questions the established mutually beneficial relationship between ‘state and science’ – where science supplies the state with a flow of knowledge, and the state supplies science with the resources to pursue research interests – the fundamental question being how to accommodate transnational science with national interest?

Yet, it would be mistake to presume that the changing nature of science presents only opportunities and few challenges for emerging economies. From a political perspective, the mutually beneficial state-science relationship at the heart of western domination of global lifesciences since WWII never really developed in India, China or Brazil. Simply put, science in the BRICS lacked political value – until now; thus today, for science to progress the key need is to forge and nurture the ‘science and state’ relationship. Furthermore, while a scientific elite is emerging in the BRICS, their experience in negotiating the key science-state relationship to take the national scientific ambition forward is lacking - although the reverse influx of seasoned diaspora (to the BRICS) from elite western scientific communities is helpful. Similarly, the institutional tools generated by more than sixty years of western domination of global lifesciences is reflected in the hegemonic dynamic of today's global bioinformatics governance and in turn disadvantages new entrants like the BRICS whose establishment of similar institutional strengths is still in its nascent stages. For instance, the Bermuda rules of 1996 enabled the development of bioinformatics self-regulation in western nations, but at the exclusion of China and India.

In the case of China, a top-down style of innovation governance has been adopted with the State Council setting the 'science' agenda with its Five Year Plans. Similarly, India’s Planning Commission’s (recently dissolved) has so far used a similar mechanism of Five Year Plans to set the agenda for the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and the Department of Technology (DIT). In contrast the UK's bottom-up approach with funding from both public and private sources is strengthened by a state apparatus that collaborates closely with a science-led (and scientific elite led) agenda. Neverthless, the Chinese or Indian state's committment to becoming global players cannot be doubted. For instance, between 2005 and 2014, China invested a whopping £303 million in bioinformatics compared to India’s £18 million and UK’s £163.9 million. However, a close study reveals that the bulk of China’s funding of £216 million while earmarked under the broad category of ‘bioinformatics’ was further earmarked under the sub-category ‘New Drug Creation and Development (2009-2010)’ – implying that states differ in their interpretation of what constitutes or differentiates bioinformatics from biomedical innovation.

That western hegemonic domination of global lifesciences has extended into bioinformatics is an accepted fact. However, the extent to which this status quo will be retained given the changing nature of science and the spaces of opportunity it has created for the BRICS to climb ever higher in the global lifesciences value chain, is worth questioning.

This blog post originally appeared on the Global Biopolitics Research Centre blog on 15 July 2015.

Has bioethics matured to the point where it is capable of re-orienting the relations between science, state and bioethics in the governance of science?

To answer these questions authors Brian Salter and Alison Harvey looked at the case of the production of human/animal chimeras (i.e. genetic hybrids) in scientific research. It is not a new practice: “cytoplasmic hybrids fusing human and non-human (mouse or hamster) cells were developed in the 1960s and were used in early studies mapping the human genome” (p. 688). Yet it has only recently come under ethical scrutiny. In 2011, the UK Academy of Medical Sciences (AMS) released a report entitled: ‘Animals containing human material’ (ACHM). The report had the ambition of shaping future regulation and governance of chimera use in biomedical research.

Whereas traditionally states have used bioethics to legitimise policy-making, the case of chimeras illustrates how bioethics is becoming more of a proactive player in the mediation of state, society and science. In the case human/animal chimeras, public bioethics (distinct from academic bioethics) is actively framing the problem, the debate, and hence its solutions. Bioethical bodies in Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and in the EU, at large, have already expressed concern and interest in the issue.

What makes current and future trends in the use of human/animal chimeras even more ethically problematic is the fact that it combines existing controversial features of scientific research: genetic modification (GM) and human embryonic stem cells (HESC). Although the introduction of human elements in animals - such as mice - are unlikely to raise issues of animal welfare, there remains the everlasting conflict of values over the ‘natural’ and the ‘unnatural’. Combined with the ethical dilemma of using of embryonic stem cells, human/animal chimeras become rather problematic.

As a solution the AMS report puts forward the concept of ‘human dignity’, arguing that respect for ‘human dignity’ may serve as the ultimate guideline in the production of chimeras, by neatly addressing both the issue of GM and HESCs. It also assures that a tight leash is kept on science and the extent to which chimeras can be made ‘human-like’. Finally, such a solution welcomes bioethics, but continues to preserve its political neutrality.

To read the full paper click here. 

This blog post originally appeared on the Global Biopolitics Research Centre blog on  15 June 2015.

Making Choices: Health Consumers, Regulation and the Global Stem Cell Therapy Market

Global Medical Discovery highlights a recent article by Brian Salter, Yinhua Zhou and Saheli Datta as a feature article for this month's issue. The excerpt below highlights the article's key findings.

The general reticence to engage with the reality of the global market of stem cell therapies serves to perpetuate the present neglect of consumer demand-led medical innovation and the forms of governance it requires. It is a reticence that has both supporters and opponents and is unlikely to remain politically unchallenged for long, and bioethicists are beginning to acknowledge the issues posed by medical innovation in the stem cell field [14]. It is important, also, that the present governance vacuum surrounding practice-based medical innovation is addressed by the medical profession itself through changes in its normal systems of self-regulation and professional guidance. Commenting on the ‘sclerotic’ qualities of the established drug innovation model traditionally sponsored by the USA and EU, Joyce Tait observes of China and India that ‘these increasingly powerful components of the bioeconomy may see a competitive advantage in leading regulatory reform so as to encourage more innovative health care sectors to develop, initially for their large and increasingly wealthy home markets, and perhaps also to encourage change in the United States and European regulatory systems’ [15]. Given the market benefits that may accrue from the association of these emerging economies with stem cell medical innovation as documented in this paper, it would be irrational of them to do otherwise.

For more details please refer to Global Medical Discovery.

The full article can be found at: Salter, Brian, Yinhua Zhou, and Saheli Datta. (2014). "Making Choices: Health Consumers, Regulation and the Global Stem Cell Therapy Market." BioDrugs: 1-4.