207 Items

View of General Assembly at UN Global Engagement Summit

UN Photo

Discussion Paper - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Exponential Innovation and Human Rights

| Feb. 27, 2018

Technological innovation and the politics of global justice are two fields that interact quite extensively in international diplomatic discourse and public debate. Controversial issues, such as accessing essential medicines, reducing greenhouse gases, conserving biological diversity, providing clean energy, and expanding the adoption of green technologies, require answers at the intersection of technological innovation, international diplomacy, and global justice. Our approach is to start off with the broader understanding that justice is rights-based and then proceed to analyze it using a goal-based framework. This brings into sharp focus the relationships between innovation and human rights.

Photo of Calestous Juma in his office.

Martha Stewart

News - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Remembering Our Colleague Professor Calestous Juma

Our colleague Calestous Juma—who passed away on December 15 at age 64 after a long illness—was a pioneering, prolific, and influential scholar/practitioner in science and technology policy for sustainable well-being. He joined Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) in 1999 as Director of the Science, Technology, and Innovation Project (a joint venture of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Center for International Development) and became Professor of the Practice of International Development in 2002, a position in which he maintained his exceptional productivity and engagement with policy, despite illness, up to the time of his death.

Wheat Plantation in northern Sudan, 26 November 2014.

Creative Commons

Analysis & Opinions - Breakthrough

Revolution in Africa

| December 16, 2016

"Sustaining African agricultural transformation will require national policy approaches which emphasize the need to transition toward sustainable agriculture. More specifically, they will need to pursue strategies that allow for the integration of precision agriculture in existing farming methods. Such policies could focus on six key elements: biological diversity; ecology and emerging technologies; infrastructure; research and training; entrepreneurship and regional trade; and improved governance of agricultural innovation."

Analysis & Opinions - Quartz Africa

If We Develop Africa's Bioeconomy It Will Be as Transformative for Us as Digital Has Been

| Dec. 13, 2016

"Unlike the digital revolution that relied on pre-existing technologies, the new bioeconomy will involve more local research, teaching and commercialization. This will require greater involvement of local universities, especially those with an entrepreneurial inclination."

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Magazine Article - The Conversation

Lessons from 'The New Harvest' on How Academics Can Turn Their Work into Policy

| December 8, 2016

"The goal of the book was to invest in thinking. It doesn't have a list of recommendations but generates options for action that are backed by evidence. We chose to forgo credit by adopting this approach, but it’s been very encouraging to see some key impacts that acknowledge the book."

Journal Article - PLoS ONE

Scientific Wealth in Middle East and North Africa: Productivity, Indigeneity, and Specialty in 1981–2013

| November 2016

Several developing countries seek to build knowledge-based economies by attempting to expand scientific research capabilities. Characterizing the state and direction of progress in this arena is challenging but important. In this article, the authors employ three metrics: a classical metric of productivity (publications per person), an adapted metric which we denote as Revealed Scientific Advantage (developed from work used to compare publications in scientific fields among countries) to characterize disciplinary specialty, and a new metric, scientific indigeneity (defined as the ratio of publications with domestic corresponding authors) to characterize the locus of scientific activity that also serves as a partial proxy for local absorptive capacity.

Goods are stacked in containers destined for global distribution at the harbor in Cape Town, South Africa, June 24, 2016. Stock markets crashed, oil prices tumbled, and the pound fell to a 31-year low as Britain's vote to leave the EU shocked investors.

AP

Journal Article - Europe'sWorld

Reshaping Europe's Africa Policies

| Autumn 2016

"Africa's economic diplomacy will be dramatically shaped by the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) negotiations that will conclude in 2017. This builds on the Tripartite Free Trade Area covering 26 countries with 650 million people and a GDP of US$1.5 trillion. The CFTA will comprise a billion people with an initial GDP of $3 trillion. The foundations of the agreement include free trade, infrastructure development and industrialisation. This is a grand opportunity that will shape Africa's relationships with the UK, Europe and the rest of the world."

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Analysis & Opinions - Quartz Africa

Africa's Regulators are Smothering its Innovators

| September 22, 2016

"Take commercial drones...as an example. In some circles this technology is stigmatized because of its military use. But the top projected civilian applications include infrastructure, agriculture, transport, media and entertaining, insurance, telecommunications and mining. Many of these will benefit African countries seeking to leapfrog traditional data collection services and land-based transportation infrastructure. But none of such benefits will accrue to nations that use old laws to suppress the new technology."

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Analysis & Opinions - The Daily Nation

Africa Must Embrace New University Models to Spur Innovation

| August 22, 2016

"Africa's higher education crisis is partly rooted in the colonial separation between research and teaching....Under this common scenario, much of the knowledge that is transmitted to society through university graduates is outdated. And up-to-date knowledge created in research institutes is bottled up because of the lack of connection with young people."

Analysis & Opinions - Africa Policy Review

Rebooting African Economies: The Place of Science and Technology in Society

| August 10, 2016

"African countries are already at the forefront of harnessing these technologies. For example, Rwanda has set itself the ambitious goal of building the first drone airport in the world. An increasing number of African countries are leveraging drone technology to address a variety of resource mapping, delivery and agricultural services. It is through such efforts that salient basic research challenges are likely to emerge."