Articles

The authors analyze the Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect (QAHE) discovery process, with the focus on the emerging research culture in post-Cultural-Revolution China, explore how an effective research leader can mobilize all relevant resources toward one common goal, and discuss how reform in China's S&T administration and funding may facilitate similar scientific breakthrough and innovation.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi traveled to Washington last week, making his fourth trip to the United States since taking office just two years ago. India and South Asia Program Fellow, Ronak Desai examines the strategic approach to India's relations with the United States.

Since 1978, when China launched its "opening up" reform, a range of large-scale national science and technology programs have been implemented to spur economic development. Energy has received significant attention and has become a growing priority in the past years. This article analyzes the goals, management, and impact over time of China's three largest national programs: Gong Guan, 863, and 973 Programs. Using quantitative metrics to describe the input and output, by conducting semi-structured interviews with officials, scientists, and other decision makers, and by reviewing available documents as well as a case study on the coal sector, the authors examined the changes in the decision making process, particularly in regard to the role of scientists.

In this new lead article, Prof. Calestous Juma, Harvard University and Prof. Yee-Cheong Lee, UNESCO, reflect on the progress made since the UN Millennium Project's Task Force report on science, technology and innovation (ST&I) was published. In 2005, the Task Force released the report Innovation: applying knowledge in development. It outlined a number of ways in which ST&I could be used to realize the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The authors claim that the report has played a key catalytic role in raising global awareness of the importance of ST&I in development.

"The challenge is finding an entry point for fostering science, technology and engineering cooperation between China and Africa. An obvious starting point is agriculture. There are two reasons for this suggestion. First, agricultural transformation was one of the first major programs launched by China after the adoption of the 1982 constitution."

The market scale of China's wind turbine manufacturing industry has grown immensely. Despite China still having a limited capacity in terms of technology innovation, the institutional support has promoted the technology capability development of the wind turbine manufacturing industry. This paper explores the driving forces underlying this development by reviewing the transition of the innovation modes and the dynamic interactions among the technology capability, innovation modes, market formation, and wind energy policy. The innovation mode in China began with imitative innovation, then transitioned to cooperative innovation, and has more recently set its sights on attaining truly indigenous innovation. Public policy serves as a key driving force for the evolution of innovation modes, as well as the development of the market.

"...[T]he rivalry between models of socio-economic development did not begin with the cold war. During the Depression, liberals sought to show that planned economic and social development was possible without the use of autocratic methods. Liberal internationalists, aware that their totalitarian ideological competitors offered their own attractive modernization programmes needed a liberal champion. In the TVA they found a global model that became nearly synonymous with liberal development because of its claim to harmonize potentially destabilizing forces. At a time when development models were features of the international discourse, the TVA distinguished itself by offering proof that large-scale, socially transformative, planning-based development was viable in a liberal democracy. The ease with which these ideas supplied an ideological strategy during the cold war illustrated the degree to which modernization had already proved its effectiveness as a weapon against ideological challenges to liberalism."

China's Ministry of Science and Technology launched the China-Africa Science and Technology Partnership on November 24, 2009.  The ministry announced that technological cooperation will be enhanced in areas such as water management and conservation, sanitation, crop breeding, health, and renewable energy. One hundred joint research partnerships will be created, and 100 African scientists at the postdoctoral level will have the opportunity to conduct research at China's technology parks, research institutes, and private enterprises. Chinese scientists and engineers will also travel to African countries to provide technical guidance, and in order to increase the research capacities of African countries, China will also donate laboratory equipment.

Science, Technology, and Globalization Project Director Calestous Juma shared his insights into the history and future of Sino-African relations in a February 2008 interview with that's China columnist Jing Zhang.

"This introductory essay explains how this new technology is being driven by the actors (multinational corporations), markets (large global markets) and rules (intellectual property) of globalisation."