As part of its review of Comparative National Innovation Policies: Best Practice for the 21st Century, the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy convened a major symposium in Washington to examine the policy changes that have contributed to India's enhanced innovative capacity. This major event, organized in cooperation with the Confederation of Indian Industry, was particularly timely given President Bush's March 2006 visit to India and the Joint Statement issued with the Indian government calling for strategic cooperation in innovation and the development of advanced technologies. The conference, which brought together leading figures from the public and private sectors from both India and the United States, identified accomplishments and existing challenges in the Indian innovation system and reviewed synergies and opportunities for enhanced cooperation between the Indian and U.S. innovation systems. This report on the conference contains three elements: a summary of the key symposium presentations, an introductory chapter analyzing the policy issues raised at the symposium, and a research paper providing a detailed examination of India's knowledge economy, placing it in terms of overall global trends and analyzing its challenges and opportunities.

This book looks at agricultural systems and rural economies in Asia through the prism of alternative innovation systems, alternative public policy and institutional changes. The massive shifts within the agricultural economy in Asia, geared towards increasing production, has had a direct effect on the livelihood of a large mass of people in rural societies, causing financial and social distress. This book explores a wide range of solutions, such as the role of education, improving technical skills and human capital, along with interactive learning in R&D, harnessing ICTs and institutional innovations, to see how these problems can be alleviated. The volume looks at how these methods can help formulate alternative ways to build sustainable and inclusive agricultural societies, ensure food security, sustainable growth and agricultural productivity. This book, rich in theoretical and empirical matter, will be useful for academics and researchers interested in agricultural innovation, development studies and agricultural economics. It will also be of interest to policymakers and thinktanks working towards inclusive social development and sustainability in Asia and the Indian subcontinent.

This book brings together scholars from different disciplines to examine the evolving patterns of economic organisation across Northeast and Southeast Asia against the backdrop of market liberalisation, political changes and periodic economic crises since the 1990s. More specifically, it provides an interdisciplinary account of variations, continuities and changes in the institutional structures that shape business systems and practices and govern innovation patterns, together with analyses of their impact on established systems of economic coordination and control. In line with this analytical focus, the project has three different yet interrelated objectives. In the first place, building on the comparative business systems framework, it elucidates the nature and properties of business system changes and continuities in Asia since the 1990s. Second, it develops novel theoretical propositions concerning the primary causes of these changes and continuities, representing a collective effort to theorise the changing varieties of Asian economic organisation. Finally, it explores the causal pathways through which the changing institutional structures governing business systems have shaped and reshaped innovation strategies and trajectories across the national, sectoral and firm levels of analysis.

In this commemorative volume, India's top business leaders and economic luminaries come together to provide a balanced picture of the consequences of the country’s economic reforms, which were initiated in 1991. What were the reforms? What were they intended for? How have they affected the overall functioning of the economy? With contributions from Mukesh Ambani, Narayana Murthy, Sunil Mittal, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Shivshankar Menon, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, T.N. Ninan, Sanjaya Baru, Naushad Forbes, Omkar Goswami and R. Gopalakrishnan, India Transformed delves deep into the life of an economically liberalized India through the eyes of the people who helped transform it.

The basic objective of innovation, which includes the processes involved in the creation of a new product, process, or organizational form, is deeply rooted in helping human beings live a comfortable life. Technology business incubation is one such arrangement, where start-ups explore their ideas and dreams under the guided support of an incubator. The book maps the role of various actors and agencies in influencing the incubation process, and provides an overview of India’s innovation ecosystem. It also explores how the existing incubation model enhances the country’s overall development pathway. The study, besides providing an in-depth analysis of the incubation process in India, also examines the science and technology culture of the country, and how this influences its development ecosystem.

This unique Companion provides a comprehensive overview and critical evaluation of existing conceptualizations and new developments in innovation research. It draws on multiple perspectives of innovation, knowledge and creativity from economics, geography, history, management, political science and sociology. The Companion brings together leading scholars to reflect upon innovation as a concept (Part I), innovation and institutions (Part II), innovation and creativity (Part III), innovation, networking and communities (Part IV), innovation in permanent spatial settings (Part V), innovation in temporary, virtual and open settings (Part VI), innovation, entrepreneurship and market making (Part VII), and the governance and management of innovation (Part VIII).

This book looks at the policy challenges confronting India and other developing countries in creating a robust, sustainable and industrialized economy. It investigates different facets of the nature, structure, growth and impact of innovation in industries, education and within institutions to foster greater productivity and growth. The volume examines systems adopted to boost innovation and diffusion of technology in different economies while also mapping their success and failures. It offers suggestions for the future for long-term growth, sustainability and inclusiveness amidst dynamic, fast-changing technological frontiers using examples and case studies from India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia, among others. The chapters in the book, written to honour the academic work of Professor Lakhwinder Singh in the field of development economics and innovation economics, highlight the importance of adopting and adapting new technologies and development models to local contexts and small industries. An important contribution to research on innovation economics, this interdisciplinary book will be of interest to students, researchers, practitioners and policy-makers working in industrial economics, international economics, political economy, innovation economics, institutional economics, industrial organization and international trade.

This book discusses the role of inclusive innovation for development in rural India. It uses the evidence of innovation in the context of skewed or limited livelihood options and multiple knowledge systems to argue that if inclusive innovation is to happen, the actors and the nature of the innovation system need reform. The book presents cases of substantive technological changes and institutional reforms enabling inclusive innovation in rural manufacturing, sustainable agriculture, health services, and the processes of technological learning in traditional informal networks, as well as in formal modern commodity markets. These cases offer lessons to enable learning and change within the state and formal science and technology (S&T) organizations. By focusing on these actors central to development economics and innovation systems framework, the book bridges the widening conceptual gaps between these two parallel knowledge domains, and offers options for action by several actors to enable inclusive innovation systems. The content is thus of value to a wide audience consisting of researchers, policy makers, NGOs and industry observers.

Despite the many benefits of energy, most of which are reflected in energy market prices, the production, distribution, and use of energy causes negative effects. Many of these negative effects are not reflected in energy market prices. When market failures like this occur, there may be a case for government interventions in the form of regulations, taxes, fees, tradable permits, or other instruments that will motivate recognition of these external or hidden costs. The Hidden Costs of Energy defines and evaluates key external costs and benefits that are associated with the production, distribution, and use of energy, but are not reflected in market prices. The damage estimates presented are substantial and reflect damages from air pollution associated with electricity generation, motor vehicle transportation, and heat generation. The book also considers other effects not quantified in dollar amounts, such as damages from climate change, effects of some air pollutants such as mercury, and risks to national security. While not a comprehensive guide to policy, this analysis indicates that major initiatives to further reduce other emissions, improve energy efficiency, or shift to a cleaner electricity generating mix could substantially reduce the damages of external effects. A first step in minimizing the adverse consequences of new energy technologies is to better understand these external effects and damages. The Hidden Costs of Energy will therefore be a vital informational tool for government policy makers, scientists, and economists in even the earliest stages of research and development on energy technologies.

This volume looks at the role of universities in the National Innovation Systems in economies of the Asia Pacific. It examines the tremendous growth of human and knowledge capital made possible by teaching and research excellence in major universities, along with how universities are being re-positioned as frontiers of innovation in the National Systems of Innovation. The chapters assess the impact of globalisation and innovation together with the emergence of ‘new’ knowledge sites extended to the Asia Pacific region. With contributions by experts and academics and key case studies, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers in higher education, development studies, public policy, economics, business and resource management, Asian studies as well as policymakers.