This background paper focuses on the potential role that international science and technology ‘foresight-type’ activities might play in informing decision-making processes about innovation, development and emerging technologies. Two, predominantly national-level, foresight type activities are discussed, ‘technology foresight’ and ‘technology assessment’. Experiences with these approaches are quite diverse but over time there has been a discernible…
Emerging Technologies and Opportunities for International Science and Technology Foresight
Centres of Excellence? Questions of Capacity for Innovation, Sustainability, Development
This paper explores what ‘mainstream’ Centres of Excellence might mean for developing countries and poor people. It examines how development is constructed as economic growth with industry and enterprise – complemented by centres of scientific excellence and technological innovation – as its key engine. It demonstrates that, in relation to science and centres of excellence,…
Biosecurity, bioterrorism and the governance of science: The increasing convergence of science and security policy
Science and security policy are increasingly overlapping because of concerns that legitimate research might be misapplied to develop biological weapons. This has led to an expansion of security policy to cover broad areas of research and scientific practice, including funding, publishing, peer-review, employment, materials transfer, post-graduate teaching and academics’ ability to design and perform experiments…