This paper is one of a series of working papers relating regional experiences to ideas proposed by the New Manifesto, following on round table discussions held in Venezuela, Argentina, and Colombia in 2010.

The paper briefly describes the heterogeneous context and history of the Latin American region with specific attention to STI policies and institutions, as well as the particular challenge of effectively linking STI to social needs. It highlights the important historic contribution of the Latin American School on Science, Technology and Development, and the relevance and synergies of ideas presented by these and contemporary Latin American researchers in relation to the New Manifesto’s ‘3Ds’. The paper documents some examples – from public, private and civil society spheres – of current Latin American initiatives that illustrate regional efforts to develop, in different ways, a 3D innovation agenda, as well as constructing and putting into practice the different New Manifesto ‘Areas for Action’. It also questions the relative weight of these efforts compared to conventional priorities of competitiveness and growth, and highlights some of the obstacles to realising 3D aims. In particular, it underscores persistent social and economic inequalities, issues of institutional and political resistance to change, and the role of power relations (at multiple levels) in determining directions of science, technology, and innovation, and STI policy, as topics worth exploring further in the future.

Download: Innovation, Sustainability, Development and Social Inclusion: Lessons from Latin America (pdf, 1MB)

Special Session: Innovation for Social Inclusion and Sustainable Development
17th November, 10.45-12.15 hrs

Video

Links to individual videos from the main presentations in the session are below:

- Adrian Ely on the New Manifesto
- Adrian Smith on innovation and social justice
- Dinesh Abrol on social innovation & India (presented by Adrian Ely)
- Hernán Thomas on innovation in Latin America
- Bengt-Åke Lundvall on Science, Technology, Society
- Rasigan Maharajh on Innovation, the future and South Africa
- Xiaobo Wu on innovation and development in China

Organizers:
Mariano Fressoli & Hernán Thomas, Instituto de Estudios Sociales - Universidad Nacional de Quilmes & Centro de Economía de la Innovación y el Desarrollo – Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Adrian Ely, STEPS Centre, University of Sussex, United Kingdom

This session is an initiative aimed at encouraging dialogue among diverse theoretical and normative approaches developed at regional levels: Latin America, Europe, South and East Asia and Africa. The session goal is to promote, coordinate and empower strategies of social intervention and public policies on innovation for inclusive and sustainable development.

The session included introductions to the field, highlighting insights from innovation studies that help to understand the role of innovation in fostering social inclusion and sustainable development, and also pointing to the ongoing challenges that innovation scholars face in addressing these vitally important issues.

Such challenges include:

- What do we know about directions of innovation and how they can be supported to contribute to social inclusion and environmental sustainability goals?
- (How) can we, ex ante, identify specific innovations/ niches that address social inclusion or sustainability goals? Is this necessary if we are to support them?
- What (new) market-based tools are available to foster innovation for a) social inclusion and b) environmental sustainability?
- How to transform individual solutions to poverty alleviation into technological systems for social and economic inclusion?
- What political tools are available? How can democratic forces better be brought-to-bear on both innovation policy makers and on the innovation process itself?

The rest of the session was organised around regional presentations, with experts providing short interventions on the similarities and differences between approaches outlined by previous speakers. Each of these was followed by short periods of open discussion, in which others from those same geographical regions were invited to feed in their own perspectives.

Session timing:
10.45-10.55 Introduction to the session, including outline of work on social innovation in Latin America (+ up to 5 minutes questions), Hernán Thomas and Mariano Fressoli, Instituto de Estudios sobre la Ciencia y la Tecnología, Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina

10.55-11.05 ‘Innovation, Sustainability, Development: A New Manifesto’ – Insights from an international project (+ up to 5 minutes questions), Adrian Ely, STEPS Centre, University of Sussex

11.05-11.15 Perspectives from India, Dinesh Abrol, National Institute for Science, Technology and Development Studies, New Delhi

11.15-11.25 Perspectives from China, Xiaobo Wu, Zhejiang University, China

11.25-11.35 Perspectives from South Africa, Rasigan Maharaj, Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa

11.35-11.45 Response – grassroots innovation, social technologies and sustainable development, Adrian Smith, STEPS Centre, Sussex University

11.45-12.05 Comments from the floor

12.05-12.15 Summing up and discussion, Bengt-Ake Lundvall, Aalborg University

Key publications

>> Innovation, Sustainability, Development and Social Inclusion: Lessons from Latin America (pdf, 1MB)

This Working Paper examines the story of innovation in Latin America, and examines intellectual, social, political and governance changes with an impact on social inclusion and sustainability in the region.

About Globelics

Globelics (the Global Network for the Economics of Learning, Innovation, and Competence Building Systems) is an international network of scholars who apply the concept of “learning, innovation, and competence building system” (LICS) as their framework and are dedicated to the strengthening of LICS in developing countries, emerging economies and societies in transition.

Below you can find the programme, as well as links to videos of the speakers and presentations, where these are available.

Day 1

Introduction and opening remarks
Welcome
Chair: P. Banerjee (NISTADS)

Introduction by
Dinesh Abrol (NISTADS)
K. J. Joseph (Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum)
Adrian Ely (STEPS Centre, UK)

Keynote Address
Anil Gupta (Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad)

Critical reflections on the state of thinking on innovation in India
E. Haribabu (Central University Hyderabad)
Aromar Revi (Indian Institute for Human Settlements)
P. Banerjee (NISTADS)

Vote of thanks by R. Raina (NISTADS)

Tea break

Technical Session I: Innovation Manifestos
Coordinator: Adrian Ely (STEPS Centre, UK)
Chair: Ashok Parthasarthi (former S&T Adviser to PM Indira Gandhi)

New Manifesto by Adrian Ely (STEPS Centre, UK)

Knowledge Swaraj Manifesto by Shambu Prasad (Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar)

Ashok Jain (EMPI Business School)
Rishikesh Krishnan (Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore)
R. Raina (NISTADS)
G. Nagarjuna (Free Software Foundation)
Usha Menon (Jodo Gyan)
Pranav Desai (Jawaharlal Nehru University-Centre for Studies in Science Policy)
Sujit Bhattacharya (NISTADS)
N. Raghuram (Society for Scientific Values)
Nitya Nanda (TERI – the Energy and Resources Institute)
Manish Anand (TERI – the Energy and Resources Institute)

Lunch break

Technical Session II: Food and Agriculture
Co-ordinator: Rajeshwari Raina
Chair: Mruthyunjaya (National Agricultural Innovation Project)

Biraj Patnaik (Right to Food Campaign, Commissioner to Supreme Court)
Sukhpal Singh (Institute of Economic Growth)
T. Vijayakumar (National Rural Livelihoods Mission)
K. J. Joseph (CDS - Trivandrum)
Lakhvinder Singh (Patiala University)
Kaustav Banerjee (JNU Centre for Studies in Science Policy-Economic Research Unit)

Day 2

Technical Session III: Health, Medicines and Technology
Co-ordinators: Dinesh Abrol & Y. Madhavi
Chair: Vandana Prasad (Public Health Resource Network)

T. Sunderraman (National Health Systems Resource Centre)
N.N. Mehrotra (Jeevaniya)
Indrajit Bhattacharya (Institute of Health Management Research)
Sachin Chaturvedi (RIS - Research and Information System for Developing Countries)
Sarla Balachandran (Open Source Drug Discovery Initiative)
Y. Madhavi (NISTADS)
Leena Menghaney (MSF - Doctors without Borders)
Ravi Mehrotra (National Physical Laboratory)
Vandana Prasad (Public Health Resource Network)

Tea break

Technical Session IV: Information and Communication Technology
Co-ordinators: P. Nath & Anindya Chaudhuri (NISTADS)
Chair: Rishikesh Krishnan (Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore)

P. Nath (NISTADS)
Anindya Chaudhuri (NISTADS)
Abhishek Singh (Department of Information Technology)
G.V. Ramaraju (Media Lab Asia/ Department of Information Technology)
Anil Pande (GNDI)
Om Vikas (Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management)
Pranesh Prakash (Centre for Internet and Society)
P. Vigneswara Ilavarasan (Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi)
P.V.S. Kumar (National Institute for Science Communication and Information Resources)
K.Joseph (CDS-Trivandrum)

Lunch break

Technical Session V: Low Carbon Innovations
Coordinators: Dinesh Abrol & Sanjib Pohit
Chair: R. Ramachandran (Frontline)

Andy Stirling (STEPS Centre, UK) (by video-conference)
H. Chanakaya (ASTRA)
Ahmar Raza (Ministry of New and Renewable Energy)
D. Raghunandan (All India Peoples Science Network)
K.J. Joy (SOPPECOM - Society For Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management)
Rohan Desouza (JNU-Centre for Studies in Science Policy)
Ravi Srinivas (RIS - Research and Information System for Developing Countries)
Tiranthakar Mandal (WWF India)

Day 3

Technical Session VI: Grassroots innovations
Co-ordinators: Dinesh Abrol & Rajeshwari Raina
Chair: Upendra Trivedi (Jan Taknik)

Adrian Smith (STEPS Centre, UK)
P. Balachander (ASTRA)
Keshab Das (Gujarat Institute of Development Research)
D. Narayana (CDS-Trivandrum)
Madav Govind (JNU-Centre for Studies in Science Policy)
Shambu Prasad (Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar)

Tea break

Technical Session: Indigenous knowledge
Co-ordinators: Dinesh Abrol & L. Pulamte
Chair: T.C. James (NIPO)

Vandana Shiva (Navdanya)
P S Ramakrishnan (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Darshan Shankar (Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Traditions)
Navjyoti Singh (International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad)
T. K. Mukherjee (Editor, ‘Traditional Knowledge’)
K.M. Gopakumar (Third World Network)
Indrani Barpujari (TERI - The Energy and Resources Institute)

Lunch break

Concluding Session
Summary from Rapporteurs and comments from co-ordinators

Technical Session I: Innovation Manifestos
Rapporteurs: Kasturi Mandal and Ankush Gupta (NISTADS)

Technical Session II: Food and Agriculture
Rapporteurs: Hardip Grewal and Sunita Sangar (NISTADS

Technical Session III: Medicines and Technology
Rapporteurs: Niharika Sahoo, Pramod Prajapati and Nidhi Singh (NISTADS)

Technical Session IV: Information and Communication Technologies
Rapporteurs: Monica (NISTADS)

Technical Session V: Low Carbon Innovation
Rapporteurs: Taposik and Aditi (NISTADS)

Technical Session VI: Grassroots Innovations
Rapporteurs: Abhinandan and A. Jayanti (NISTADS)

Technical Session VII: Indigenous Knowledge
Rapporteurs: Abhinandan (NISTADS)

Launch of INDIALICS (Indian Network for Learning about Innovation and Competence Building Systems)

The report builds on work previously conducted as part of the Manifesto and research carried out during the first phase of the STEPS Centre.

It explores the role that ‘new models’ of technology assessment can play in improving the lives of poor and vulnerable populations in the developing world. The ‘new models’ addressed here combine citizen and decision-maker participation with technical expertise. They are virtual and networked rather than being based in a single office of technology assessment (as was the case in the United States in the 1970s-90s). They are flexible enough to address issues across disciplines and are increasingly transnational or global in their reach and scope.

The report argues that these new models of technology assessment can make a vital contribution to informing policies and strategies around innovation, particularly in developing regions. They are most beneficial if they enable the broadening out of inputs to technology assessment, and the opening up of political debate around possible directions of technological change and their interactions with social and environmental systems. Beyond the process of technology assessment itself, the report argues that governance systems within which these processes are embedded play an important role in determining the impact and effectiveness of technology assessment.

Finally, the report argues for training and capacity-building in technology assessment methodologies in developing countries, and support for internationally co-ordinated technology assessment efforts to address global and regional development challenges.

Downloads

>> Report: New Models of Technology Assessment for Development (pdf 1.24mb)
>> Briefing: New Models of Technology Assessment for Development (pdf 236kb)

Dr Costa Teixeira is a specialist in water management and will be discussing the Manifesto with members (students, associated researchers, lecturers) of his research group LabGest and some invited reseachers from other departments, and asking what it means in the context of their work.

Professor Sir Hans Singer considered it one of the three most important reports he had been involved in writing. Given Prof. Singer’s illustrious career spanning seven decades from 1936, that is quite an endorsement. The report in question is The Sussex Manifesto: Science and Technology to Developing Countries during the Second Development Decade (1970).

Professor Geoff Oldham, one of the original report’s co-authors and now working on our New Manifesto project, gave a STEPS Centre seminar in February 2008 about the writing of the Sussex Manifesto, its controversial reception and the impact it had on science and technology for development, almost 40 years after he and the rest of The Sussex Group wrote it.

>> Watch the full-length version of this Seminar on blip.tv

Prof. Oldham is a former director of SPRU Science and Technology Policy Research, former chairman of the United Nations Advisory Committee on Science and Technology for Development, and for five years was the UK Delegate to the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development.

He not only gave us a personal potted history of the writing of the Manifesto, but reflected candidly on what he believes The Sussex Group got right, what they got wrong, whether the report made any difference and finally, what he might have included had he helped write the same document today.

The seven-strong Sussex Group – Profs Oldham and Singer, Charles Cooper, R.C. Desai, Christopher Freeman, Oscar Gish and Stephen Hill – were an early example of collaboration between IDS and SPRU at the University of Sussex, which both opened their doors in 1966.

Causing controversy at the UN
The joint IDS/SPRU team, with Prof. Singer as chair, was asked by the Office of Science and Technology at the UN to give an overview of the issues around science and technology for development, complete with diagnostics and some effort at solutions. The commissioned report was intended to serve as the introductory chapter to the UN World Plan of Action on Science and Technology for Development for the ‘Second UN Development Decade’, the 1970s.

“So we were given the opportunity of looking forward 10 years, and the group made some radical suggestions, for the time at least,” said Prof. Oldham. And it was those radical suggestions that garnered a radical response from the UN: they rejected the report. It was too extreme, and it contained ‘targets’. At the time the UN did not consider it appropriate for a group of academics to be advocating targets. The UN claimed ownership over the report and forbid the Sussex Group from publishing it.

After the efforts that had been dedicated to the production of the report, this response was unacceptable. Oldham and Freeman, who had already flown to Ethiopia to represent the Sussex Group, demanded the right to present their recommendations at the dedicated UN meeting in Addis Ababa. They also decided that whether or not the UN would use the report, they were going to publish it anyway because they, quite rightly, believed the work was important.

So they took the highly unusual, some might say inflammatory, step of challenging the UN to sue them. After the mayhem died down, the UN agreed to publish the “manifesto” (as it was later referred to in the UN General Assembly) as an annex to the final report, but that they instead would write the introductory chapter.

Opportunities taken, and missed
Prof. Oldham believes that among the things The Sussex group did well were demonstrating the need for a systems approach for science and technology for development (albeit focussing mainly on science and technology for economic development as defined in their Terms of Reference); showing the need to consider demand for science and technology as well as supply; and developing indicators and targets.

But more prominence should have been given to social and environmental issues, Prof. Oldham said. Making no mention of “innovation” and ignoring implicit science and technology policy in governments’ economic and fiscal policies were failings, he believes. Ethical issues and the gender dimension were also ignored: “In hindsight we should have recognised them but we didn’t do them justice,” he added.

Positive impacts
The Manifesto did have positive impacts, said Prof. Oldham, including raising awareness of science and technology in UN circles, at a time when there was hostility to any increase in expenditure to science and technology; impacting on the design of IDRC – the Canadian International Development Research Centre - and being used for teaching courses in both North and South universities.

But if The Sussex Group was writing the report today, five further issues would be included: globalisation; poverty; market economies; the growth of science and technology capabilities in emerging economies; and the impact of new technologies, such as IT, biotechnology and nanotechnology.

The worlds of science, technology and development have changed beyond recognition since 1970, but in producing such influential reports, Prof. Oldham believes two things remain as important today as they were forty years ago: creating an esprit de corps among group members to build on their strengths and those of their institutions; and being optimistic about the future.

Resources

>> The Sussex Manifesto on Wikipedia

>> The 1970 Sussex Manifesto: Science and Technology to Developing Countries during the Second Development Decade (pdf 1.5MB)

>> A copy of the full UN report - Science and Technology for Development: Proposals for the Second United Nations Development Decade is available. Email to request a copy (the Sussex Manifesto is Annex II)

>> Watch the video clip of Geoff Oldham’s seminar (YouTube)

>> Watch the full-length video of Geoff Oldham’s seminar (blip.tv)

>> Listen to the podcast of Geoff Oldham’s seminar

>> Read Geoff Oldham’s presentation (pdf 44kb)

>> Read the seminar blog

>>See photos (link to Flickr)

Investigations in the field of Glaciology and Climate Change at the CECS are notably innovative as well as their scientific expeditions to the Antarctic territory. To some extent the Center has arguably reshaped thinking about the role of science in development in Chile and Latin America. The CECS has incorporated the military force as a support to science research, while also holding a democratic view of society. The Center has contributed to the decentralization of the country due to the decision to move and settle down in Valdivia, a small city 800 km (to the south) from the capital city Santiago.

The Center is led by the physicist Claudio Bunster, who, together with his team have helped develop private-public partnerships in order to obtain financing for the institution. Scientists from Latin America and all around the world visit the Centre for their research. The Center has an internal organization based in horizontal relations and mutual support between researchers.

It has been an excellent example of an institution demonstrating that from the South of the world it is possible to produce science of a very first level. In recent years the Center has been involved in a new challenge of greater support and development of applied sciences, beyond their traditional strength in basic sciences. CECS research is funded by competitive funding from the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development (FONDECYT - Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico) and other national and international agencies.

Timeline entry contributed by Juan Manuel Fernández Urcelay

Source: CECS website

The premise of the process is the complex, fragmented and inadequately coordinated institutional context for international environmental governance of growing environmental challenges affecting societies and ecosystems at all scales from local to global.

To date, there are more than 500 multilateral environmental agreements in existence, dozens of agencies mandated to comply with and implement these agreements and address a multitude of other environmental aims and needs, with still fairly limited and dispersed funding sources.

In the last couple years, the persistent debate on how to reform international environmental governance (IEG) has grown and ‘gained significant momentum through processes put into place by the UNEP Governing Council, statements made by Heads of State, as well as through initiatives taken by intergovernmental bodies such as the Commonwealth, and by civil society such as the Global Environmental Governance Project’.

The Consultative Group of the Belgrade Process began by identifying the ‘possible core objectives and underlying functions of the system’ with the aim to find a form for IEG that effectively fits its function. This identification represents a critical step towards defining a pathway for improving IEG, and was a first. It also shows a growing recognition that only when there is a clear analysis of what is needed of the IEG system, followed by an assessment of what exists, can the international community embark upon an effective reform of the system. (UNEP, 2009)

Summary of the Consultative Group activities:
1. The Belgrade Meeting, June 2009 – Output: Roadmap
2. The Rome Meeting, October 2009 – Output: Set of Options for Improving IEG
3. The Bali Meeting, March 2010 – Output: Nusa Dua Declaration (Climate change, sustainable development, Green economy Biodiversity and ecosystems)

UNEP aims to coordinate the development of a ‘functioning IEG system that provides the international framework to support governments in successfully addressing environmental challenges and meeting their commitments at the national level’ and is, ‘in many cases, a precondition for UNEP to carry out other activities effectively’. (UNEP, 2009)

Timeline entry contributed by Biljana Ledenican

Ethos became a reference in Brazil for CSR and sustainability, building awareness and being a key player in making sustainability a mainstream topic in the news media and closer to individuals.

The mission of Ethos is to ‘mobilise, sensitise, and support firms to manage their businesses in a socially-responsible way, towards the construction of a more just and sustainable society’. The Ethos Institute ‘develops, organises, and adapts materials on Tools for Business Management to keep them up to date and relevant to issues of global and national Corporate Social Responsibility.’ Tools include instruments for self-evaluation and learning, developed to meet the needs of firms at different stages of management, but primarily for internal use in diagnosis, planning and implementation, as well as benchmarking for the evaluation process.

The basic tools include Best Practices Bank, Social Accountability Guide, Compatibility Guide, Ethos Indicators, Contextualising tools, Matrix of Essential Criteria, Evidence Matrix, Sustainability Reporting.

Timeline entry contributed by Carolina de Andrade

The index is designed to challenge well-established indices of countries’ development, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the Human Development Index (HDI), which are seen as not taking sustainability into account. In particular, GDP is seen as inappropriate, as the usual ultimate aim of most people is not to be rich, but to be happy and healthy. Furthermore, it is believed that the notion of sustainable development requires a measure of the environmental costs of pursuing those goals.

The HPI is based on general utilitarian principles — that most people want to live long and fulfilling lives, and the country which is doing the best is the one that allows its citizens to do so, whilst avoiding infringing on the opportunity of future people and people in other countries to do the same. In effect it operationalises the IUCN’s (World Conservation Union) call for a metric capable of measuring ‘the production of human well-being (not necessarily material goods) per unit of extraction of or imposition upon nature’. Human well-being is operationalised as Happy Life Years. Extraction of or imposition upon nature is proxied for using the ecological footprint per capita, which attempts to estimate the amount of natural resources required to sustain a given country’s lifestyle. A country with a large per capita ecological footprint uses more than its fair share of resources, both by drawing resources from other countries, and also by causing permanent damage to the planet which will impact future generations.

Those who sign on to the Happy Planet Charter believe that:

“- A new narrative of progress is required for the twenty-first century.

- It is possible to have a good life without costing the Earth.

- Over-consumption in rich countries represents one of the key barriers to sustainable well-being worldwide and that governments should strive to identify economic models that do not rely on constantly growing consumption to achieve stability and prosperity.

They call for:

- Governments to measure people’s well-being and environmental impact in a consistent and regular way, and to develop a framework of national accounts that considers the interaction between the two so as to guide us towards sustainable well-being.

- Developed nations to set an HPI target of 89 by 2050 – this means reducing per capita footprint to 1.7 gha, increasing mean life satisfaction to eight (on a scale of 0 to 10) and continuing to increase mean life expectancy to reach 87 years.

- Developed nations and the international community to support developing nations in achieving the same target by 2070.”

Timeline entry contributed by Andrew Mailing