The National
Science Foundation's Tokyo Regional Office periodically reports
on develop-ments in Japan that are related to the Foundation's
mission. It also provides occasional re-ports on developments
in other East Asian countries. These reports are intended to provide
information for the use of NSF program officers and policy makers;
they are not statements of NSF policy.
NB: These proceedings of the October 1999 Sino-U.S. Science Policy Seminar, co-organized by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the U.S. National Science Foundation, were edited by Mu Rongping, Head of the Department of Policy Studies of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Policy and Management, and William A. Blanpied, Director of NSF's Tokyo Regional Office. The complete bilingual proceeding, including texts of the seminar papers, papers available, will be available in hard copy in late summer.
Executive Summary..........................................................................................................................pp. i-vi
Proceedings............................................................................................................................pg.
1
A. Overview.................................................................................................................................1
B. Information and Data Requirements for Policy Making...............................................................2
C. Human Resources for Science and Engineering..........................................................................7
D. Changing Character of R&D...................................................................................................10
E. Highlights of Principal Discussion Themes ................................................................................13
F. Challenges for the Future..........................................................................................................18
G. Coda.......................................................................................................................................19
Appendices
U.S. Participants...........................................................................................................................20
Participants from the People's Republic of China............................................................................22
Background. The first Sino-U.S. Joint Science Policy Seminar to be organized by agencies of the governments of the two countries (the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (NSFC) and the US National Science Foundation (NSF)), took place in Beijing, People's Republic of China, from October 24-26, 1999*. The seminar was conceived of as the first in a decade-long series of dialogues between representatives from the principal sectors of the science and technology (S&T) enterprise in the two countries. Its theme-R&D and the Knowledge-Based Society-was selected to provide opportunities for broad-based discussions about changing demands on, and opportunities for science and technology in the knowledge-based economy or, more broadly, the knowledge-based society. Underlying the selection of this theme was the assumption that a deeper understanding and appreciation of differing perspectives and approaches to associated issues will improve planning-nationally, bilaterally, and regionally-for the effective and balanced development of science and engineering resources and their utilization in the service of cultural, social and economic goals.
The seminar brought together 12 participants from each country with experience in their respective academic, industrial and government sectors. Additionally, several younger Chinese scientists and scholars attended the sessions as observers. Prepared presentations and discussions in plenary sessions and parallel breakout sessions focused on three broad topics: (1) information and data requirements for science policy; (2) human resources for science and engineering; and (2) the Changing Character of R&D.
Information and Data Requirements for Science Policy. The phrase international cooperation, when used in a science policy context, is usually taken to mean R&D cooperation, whether in "big" science projects or the far more common "ordinary" science or engineering projects. However, information exchange is itself an essential type of international scientific collaboration. Information exchange between working scientists and engineers is, of course, necessary to the conception and implementation of specific cooperative R&D programs. At a more fundamental level, information exchange among scientists, policy makers and scholars is an essential prerequisite to more intense, purposeful international research cooperation.
As a case in point, a central objective of the Beijing seminar was to provide an occasion for the latter type of information exchange between and among Chinese and U.S. participants about:
Exchange of information of this character can help reduce an important if subtle barrier to international R&D cooperation: namely ignorance on the part on the part of both working scientists and their governments about the capabilities, interests, and motives of potential international partners. In view of the extraordinary opportunities for cooperation that exist now and in the near future, an important aspect of the international science policies of both China and the United States should be to exchange critical information that can help overcome this barrier.
A closely related category of international cooperation in the science policy context involves cooperation in developing and refining internationally comparable statistical indicators to understand better trends in important national and international aspects of the science and technology enterprise. Although this type of cooperation needs to be initiated and pursued by working scientists and scholars, it cannot proceed without the active support, encouragement and-to some extent the participation of-governments
It is essential to examine, periodically and critically, the question of whether the indicators being developed intersect sufficiently with what policy-makers need to ensure that those policy makers are among the users who find the data useful to have. In the United States, the National Science Foundation's Science and Engineering Indicators Program conducts periodic customer surveys to assure that the data it disseminates remain pertinent to the needs of its users.
A great deal more attention also needs to be paid to measuring the outputs of R&D and the outcomes that reflect the impact of science and technology on society.
International cooperation can be an important means for developing better quantitative measures of outcomes, and to assure the relevance of science and technology indicators to policy makers and science policy scholars.
Human Resources for Science and Engineering. Human resources development, particularly in engineering and the applied sciences, is one of the most important challenges that both China and the United States face. Industrial employers are seeking university graduates who are broader and more interdisciplinary in nature than were their predecessors. Industry needs people with the ability to think logically, adapt quickly, work in teams, communicate their results succinctly, and graduates with a yearning for lifelong learning to keep them ahead of technical obsolescence.
Universities can play roles in economic development, not only by providing well-educated graduates, but also in facilitating technology transfer to industry through programs intended to link the knowledge generation in the universities to business opportunities. Indeed, perhaps the most important of the evolving demands on research universities is to become not just creators of knowledge and knowledgeable individuals, but also to expand their role and methods in the rapid diffusion of knowledge. This is not necessarily a new role for some universities. But for others it is a dramatic break from their long held views of the role of universities in human resource development and in the innovation system. Government policy can facilitate this, as for example the laws in the United States that give patent and licensing rights for inventions supported by Federal funds to the universities.
Universities can also contribute a great deal to the development of their local regions, California being a prime example in the United States. In China, the Science and Technology University in Hefei is a good example. However, most good universities in China are concentrated in a few cities. How does that influence the national pattern of innovation? What can be done to encourage the coordination and spread of their contribution to the national economy?
Most Chinese participants agreed that reform is urgently required in the Chinese higher education system to reorient education to the output-demand needs of a knowledge-based economy. To accomplish this will require that universities be given greater autonomy in several spheres, including: academic programs and curriculum, administration, and fiscal matters. Rather than having students specialize as soon as they begin college, Chinese universities may benefit from introducing the concept of liberal arts education. Attention will also need to be directed to the education of a managerial group. And of major importance, private universities will need to be encouraged, including universities with international linkages.
The trend toward university-industry cooperation that is beginning to emerge in a few major cities in China has obvious positive implications for the dissemination and application of scientific and technological innovation. But should there be limits to university engagement in business activities, given the potential conflict between industry's desire for short-term research results and the fundamental mission of universities to promote the conduct of long-term basic research?
Changing Character of R&D. Throughout the 1990s, the U.S Government's R&D expenditures, measured in constant dollars, have remained essentially flat, while industrial expenditures have continued to increase. According to the most recent estimates, U.S. industrial R&D investments in 1999 are expected to be $166 billion, up 12 percent over the estimated $148 billion that was invested in R&D by industry during 1998. This $166 billion represents 68 percent of the $245 billion total R&D effort in the U.S. in 1999. The U.S. Government is expected provide $68 billion for R&D in 1999, or 28 percent of the total, while universities will provide $6 billion of their own funds (2 percent) and non-profit organizations will provide $5 billion (2 percent).
While the prominence of the U.S. Government as a supporter of R&D has continued to decline relative to that of private industry, its importance in encouraging and in formulating and implementing national policies for effective R&D investments has become more important. Government policies now aim to use public-private partnerships as means for meeting societal goals, and to provide a legal framework for these partnerships. Government must also continue to play the vital role as the principal supporter of basic research in universities and other non-profit institutions.
In China, the central government remains the principal supporter of R&D, and the bulk of R&D funding has traditionally gone to public research institutions and universities in major cities rather than to enterprises. A recent study whose results were reported in the first plenary session of the seminar shows that the overall innovation performance in state-owned enterprises is considerably less than in all other types; e.g., joint ventures and private companies. Moreover, state-owned enterprises have the smallest proportion of new international products and accounted for only 9.5 percent of total sales. This situation is showing some improvement, as China's policy makers take steps to promote more R&D investments in enterprises. Policy makers have also come to recognize that in order for industrial research to be effective, it must be understood and organized in a way that is fundamentally different from that of public research institutions.
China, in common with the United States, also recognizes the importance of basic research. Currently, six percent of the Chinese Government's R&D budget is allocated to the support of basic research, a proportion that the Government intends to increase to 10 percent. [NB: In the United States slightly more than 16.3 percent of total national R&D expenditures are currently devoted to basic research.] In part because of differing levels of development, basic research in China is more closely linked to national goals-primarily economic development-than is the case in the United States. Nevertheless, over 40 percent of the basic research currently supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China is characterized as "pure", investigator-initiated research.
Although industry has become both the dominant funder and performer of R&D in the United States, the character of industrial research itself has changed. Twenty years ago, industry performed a reasonable amount of basic research. Today, most industrial research focuses is short term and goal oriented. As a result, industry now relies much more heavily than in the past on the basic research performed by universities.
In the United States, university researchers have created many new, high-tech small businesses. In China, a few universities and research institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have also been successful in starting profitable high-tech businesses-with Legend Holding Company perhaps the most prominent example..
Globalization. The trend towards globalization of the economy and R&D is closely linked. Indeed, as was pointed out at the seminar, since one-sixth of all scientific publications are now co-authored by investigators from more than one country, scientific research may be the most global of human activities, and may also be a leading indicator for other fields.
While on balance globalization should be beneficial, potential negative impacts also need to be recognized. Globalization will almost certainly condition bilateral relations between China and the United States. U.S perceptions of cooperation with China at the governance level will increasingly be seen through the lenses of globalization. Reciprocally, managing the effects of globalization is one the more challenging tasks facing China's science and technology development strategies, including relations with the United States.
If, as most of not all seminar participants certainly desire, intensified Sino-U.S. R&D cooperation will be one consequence of globalization, policy makers in both China and the United States will almost certainly inquire about relative gains that their respective country's will obtain from such cooperation. Thus, the time may be right to begin to anticipate possible future conflict over relative gains in US-China science and technology relations in order that they not escalate into higher level conflict.
Future Challenges. The first, October 1999 Sino-US-Science Policy Seminar constituted a productive start in the exchange of the types of information required as a basis for more extensive and productive R&D cooperation. Importantly, such an information exchange must include a frank exchange of views and perceptions that can result in the removal of actual and perceived barriers to cooperation. But the Beijing seminar was conceived of not as an end in itself, but as the first in a decade-long series of dialogues that will provide opportunities for discussion on specific policy issues of mutual interest and involve a wider range of individuals and organizations in the two countries.
Ideas for possible future events were discussed during the final session of the seminar and being explored in more detail by the joint Sino-U.S. organizing committee. An important criterion for selecting an event, in addition to the intrinsic interest of a topic to both sides, is the likelihood that it can expand the network of institutions in both countries engaged in the dialogues. Events that may possibly be organized within the next 12 to 24 months include:
Coda. In the first presentation at the seminar, David Hart from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government suggested a simple, if idealistic outcome for the anticipated decade-long series dialogues between China and the United States: namely, to develop a lively, international civil R&D society.
In the United States, the term "civil society" connotes a private, non-official grouping of individuals with common aims who join together to further their objectives. This formulation, therefore, envisions a future in which scientists and engineers in both China and the United States could enjoy a lively, open, and productive interchange of views leading to useful and mutually beneficial research cooperation. Significant progress has been made towards this end since the United States and the Peoples Republic of China formally initiated scientific exchanges in 1979. However, the underlying rationale for a proposed decade-long series of science policy dialogues is that the time is ripe to permit an accelerated approach.
But of course a lively, international civil society of working scientists and engineers cannot exist or prosper without the active support and encouragement of their governments. Perhaps the principal challenges that emerged from the two days of discussion at Beijing were: (1) how to reduce actual and perceived barriers to international cooperation at both the level of working scientists and engineers and at the governance level; and (2) how to achieve an appropriate and effective balance between the roles of working scientists and their institutions on the one hand, and the roles of governments on the other, in furthering appropriate and productive cooperation.
It may be worth noting that the English word "policy" is derived from the same Greek root as "polis", designating the city. During the third century before the current era, Athenian philosophers and politicians spent a great deal of time debating the attributes of the ideal city, which they regarded as a microcosm of the ideal civil society. But of course they were already three centuries too late to have had any claim to originality. For during the sixth century before the current era, the scholar Kung Fu-tzu, known in the West as Confucius, was already teaching his countrymen the attributes of a just civil society.
Although the principal concern
of the October 1999 Science Policy Seminar in Beijing was how
to expand and make more effective scientific cooperation between
the China and the United States in the 21st century, perhaps we
were really asking how the teachings of Kung Fu-tzu, and of the
Athenian philosophers who dealt with attributes of the ideal civil
society three centuries later, can be adapted to our current knowledge-based,
globalized circumstances.
China and the United States are both experiencing transitions towards a global, knowledge-based economy (or, more broadly, a global, knowledge-based society) in which the ability to create, manipulate, store, disseminate and exploit knowledge and information will be a major source of economic progress, competitive advantage, and improvements in the quality of life. Advances in science and technology underlie this transition, which in turn offers new challenges to the science and technology enterprise itself. Importantly, knowledge-including scientific knowledge-will also be an increasingly significant factor in relations among nations.
Against this background, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) organized a Sino-U.S. Science Policy Seminar, conceived of as the first in a decade-long series of science- and policy-related dialogues among scientists and engineers, policy makers, and policy scholars in China and the United States. The seminar took place in Beijing, People's Republic of China, from October 24-26, 1999, and brought together 12 participants from the academic, industrial and government sectors of each country. Additionally, several younger Chinese scientists and scholars attended the sessions as observers (see participant list, Appendix E). Xu Weixuan, Director of the Institute of Policy and Management of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and J. Thomas Ratchford, Distinguished Visiting Professor National Center for Technology and the Law at George Mason University, served as respective Chinese and U.S. co-chairs of the organizing committee for the seminar. Mu Rongping, Director of the Department. for Policy Studies, CAS Institute of Policy and Management , and Willliam A. Blanpied, Director of NSF's Tokyo Regional Office, the principal rapporteurs and co-editors of the proceedings.
The primary objective of the seminar was to explore issues germane to the knowledge-based economy. Many of these issues transcend specific disciplinary interests; all have significant implications for the science and engineering enterprises in the two countries. Underlying this objective is the assumption that a deeper understanding and appreciation of differing perspectives and approaches to issues of mutual concern will improve planning-nationally, bilaterally, and regionally-for the effective and balanced development of science and engineering resources and their utilization in the service of cultural, social and economic goals.
Heightened public expectations for the science and engineering enterprise in both China and the United States suggest that among the most critical set of problems that the enterprise needs to address on a continuing basis will be how to:
1. improve the effectiveness of
knowledge production; and
2. enhance links between knowledge production, dissemination,
and application, including
application of scientific knowledge itself into broader policy-making
processes themselves.
The second of these challenges will be particularly important to the maintenance and improvement of the innovation systems on which economic and social progress depend.
The Sino-U.S. organizing committee for the seminar agreed that the first event in the proposed decade-long series should take a broad-brushed approach by emphasizing the exchange of information and perceptions about a range of issues, some of which might worthy of more detailed exploration in subsequent dialogues. Accordingly, the seminar opened with a plenary session and an associated breakout session devoted to Information and Data Requirements for Policy Making and Research and Development (R&D). A second plenary session and associated breakout session considered Human Resources for Science and Engineering. A third plenary session, held on the second day, was devoted to an exploration of The Changing Character of Research and Development. Conclusions and challenges for the future were discussed in a final plenary session.
Two papers were presented in this session:
"Context for International R&D Cooperation", by David Hart, and
"Statistical Analysis of Technological Innovation in Large and Middle Sized Industry
and Enterprises", by Feng Xuan and Chen Jin.
An implicit subtitle for this session might have been, "Information Requirements for International Scientific Cooperation." That would have been eminently appropriate, in view of the global character of the knowledge-based economy.
David Hart's paper provided a context for much of the discussion during the ensuing sessions of the seminar. He began by reviewing the benefits of cooperation, whether between researchers in different types of institutions in the same country, or cooperation across national borders. Cooperation can generate added value by concentrating more and different minds on a given problem. By bringing a range of skills and resources to bear, cooperation can foster an efficient division of labor and speed up the R&D process. By diversifying the contexts within which the participants in the R&D process are situated, cooperation may raise the likelihood that the results of R&D will be found to be useful and, along the way, generate interesting new problems and methods. However, whereas almost by definition all seminar participants favored increased international scientific cooperation, such cooperation should not be undertaken simply for its own sake. Rather, realistic priorities based on shared goals are an essential prerequisite to productive cooperation, whether international or otherwise. Adequate information about the interests of and resources available to potential international partners constitutes a minimal requirement for identifying such mutually beneficial goals and for establishing realistic priorities.
Hart's paper went on to consider barriers to effective international research cooperation. Two of the most obvious at the level of working scientists and engineers are language and the cost of communication. While advances in information technology have dramatically reduced this second barrier, there is no adequate substitute for extended, hands-on face-to-face interactions that require people to travel to one another's labs.
The paper stressed the frequently subtle barrier of ignorance. It is difficult for busy researchers to know what is going on elsewhere that may be of interest, particularly beyond their own narrowly defined specialties and the institutions and places with which they are most familiar. Ignorance goes hand-in-hand with fear. Researchers have a lot riding on their research: reputations, careers, and families.
Hart suggested that despite these barriers, researchers will choose to cooperate more often than not, when given the chance. The spirit of risk-taking and of internationalism remains widespread and deeply-felt in the science and engineering community.
Barriers to international cooperation are also present at the governance level, which Hart defined as encompassing those individuals and organizations that shape R&D choices, including funders, employers, regulators, and lawmakers. These "governors" may be ignorant of distinctions among different types of R&D and wall off excessively broad areas from cooperation. They may be ignorant of the potential gains from cooperation. The issue of opportunity costs, too, appears at the governance level and in a more potent way than at the working level.
Hart's paper noted that a special set of barriers relates to the governance of projects that are designed as cooperative efforts, particularly "big science" projects. One challenge is to devise goals for such projects that are defensible to governors on all sides. While these justifications need not always be made in the same terms to each partner, they should at least be compatible with one another.
Hart concluded by suggesting why it is essential to work on reducing these barriers: namely, because of the extraordinary opportunities for cooperation that exist now and in the near future. The diffusion of R&D capabilities around the world, the explosion of scientific and technical fields, the breakdown of established institutional boundaries (like those between universities and corporations in the United States), and the decreasing costs of electronic communication, exponentially expand the forms of activity that might be explored through cooperative R&D. The purpose of public policy with respect to R&D cooperation, then, should not be to maximize the level of cooperation. Instead, its purpose should be to enhance the gains and reduce the costs of cooperation, whether it be across institutional boundaries or national borders.
Feng Xuan and Chen Jin's paper summarized the results of an innovation survey of 3346 large and medium sized industrial enterprises in Beijing, Liaoning Province, Harbin, Shanghai, and Jiangsu and Guangdong Provinces. Among these enterprises, 1867 were state-owned, 208 were of the adopted stock system, 539 were joint ventures, and 732 were private firms. This sample is typical for the entire country. The survey focused on the current situation for technological innovation in China using the indices defined by the OECD's Oslo manual for human resources, equipment, innovation type and ratio, innovation novelty, means of innovation, cost structure of innovation, and innovation results.
One important result of the survey was that overall innovation performance in state-owned enterprises is considerably less than in all other types. Importantly, the joint ventures surveyed produced the largest proportion of new international products and accounted for 23.3 percent of the total sales of the entire sample. In contrast, state-owned enterprises had the smallest proportion of new international products and accounted for only 9.5 percent of total sales.
Feng and Chen's paper concluded with several recommendations for incorporating innovation more effectively into China's science and technology policy. First, concrete and specific guidelines should be given for effective innovation, rather than overly general and universal guidelines. For example, state enterprises should not only emphasize technological innovation, but also institutional and cultural innovations that have been incorporated into other types of enterprises.
Second, more technological innovation should be provided by the enterprises themselves and national science and technology policy should offer incentives to this end. Firms need to invest more in R&D. Additionally, they need to improve their R&D facilities and enhance the level of their R&D workforce.
Finally, science and technology policy needs to be based on a clear recognition that the essence of technological innovation is to link science, technology, production, and marketing. To this end, government policy should emphasize international cooperation as an essential means for strengthening those links.
An important objective of the Beijing seminar was to provide an occasion for information exchange between the Chinese and U.S. participants from several types of organizations about:
Feng and Chen's paper dealt with all three points. For example, the status of technological innovation in China and the factors underlying successful innovation are of considerable interest to the country's political and scientific leadership. Adequate information, such as Feng and Chen's paper reviewed in quantitative detail, will clearly remain essential in formulating policies to promote successful innovation. It is equally clear that the promotion of technological innovation will remain an important future goal for the country. Feng and Chen's paper was also important in providing the U.S. participants with insights not only into the technological innovation process in China, but also about the current state of knowledge about the innovation process itself. The availability of such information is an essential prerequisite to productive bilateral cooperation, both for understanding the innovation process itself, and in formulating policies to facilitate innovation.
Various categories of international scientific cooperation were referred to during the ensuing discussion, and were also highlighted by John McTague in his presentation during Plenary Session IIII. These include: cooperation in planning, constructing and operating large and expensive research facilities, such as particle accelerators, or optical and radio telescopes. They also include major distributed projects undertaken on a worldwide basis, such as genome mapping and sequencing and global change research. As with all effective research cooperation, the scientific communities of cooperating countries must take the initiative for conceptualizing and advancing such projects. However, because of the cost and complexity of such projects, experience demonstrates that governments must also be involved in planning from an early stage.
Despite the prominence of large-scale cooperative research projects, the majority of international research cooperation involves cooperation between individual scientists or small groups from two or more countries, together with their graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. In these cases the role of governments should be limited to encouraging and facilitating the cooperative efforts of the researchers.
Participants agreed that two other important although often-neglected categories of international cooperation deserved more emphasis. The first category involves exchange of information which, of course, occurred throughout the seminar. There was a broad consensus that information exchange on critical science policy issues between appropriate Chinese and U.S. experts needs to be pursued in a more focused, detailed manner.
The second closely related category, illustrated by Feng and Chen's paper, involves cooperation in developing and refining internationally comparable statistical tools to understand better trends in important national and international aspects of the scientific enterprise.
Both types of cooperation-information exchange and methodological cooperation-need to be initiated and pursued by working scientists. However, neither can proceed without the active encouragement and support of governments.
Data Requirements for Policy Making and R&D: Parallel Breakout Session I
The three papers presented in this session provided good examples of the potential benefits of international cooperation in developing internationally comparable statistical tools for policy making. They were:
"Using National Accounts to Assess the Role of R&D", by Sumiye Okubo;
"Evaluation of International Competitiveness of High-tech Industries", by Mu Rongping; and
"Indicators of International Science & Engineering Cooperation and Interaction", by Jennifer Sue Bond.
Sumiye Okubo described a framework for measuring the effects of R&D on economic growth. This framework would treat R&D as an investment across all industries. It provides a methodology for estimating the full rate of return to R&D-the benefits of the entity undertaking R&D, the direct return and, to others, the spillover return. Her project is ambitious and would take several years to carry out. Participants agreed that it is extraordinary that R&D is not routinely treated as an investment. Her paper pointed out again how important it is to remember that analytic categories are often constructed as a result of legal and political decisions, rather than professional or scholarly choices.
Mu Rongping also described an ambitious framework that would require substantial funding and effort to implement. In his case, the object of analysis is corporate and industrial competitiveness in the high-technology sector. He described a method for classifying industries as "high-technology" and then listed multiple measures for the analysis. These measures cover the real and potential competitiveness of firms and sectors as well as their environment.
Jennifer Bond drew on her broad knowledge of various types of indicators and indicators methodologies based, in part, on her experience as the director of NSF's Science and Engineering Indicators program and her extensive international cooperative work, to provide a picture of international scientific cooperation in and between the United States and China. She focused particularly on flows of people and production of papers, and her paper thus nicely complemented John McTague's paper on "Globalization of R&D" presented in Plenary Session III.
The data presented by Bond show that China is rising in international stature and, while the brain drain from China to the U.S. and other industrialized countries is not reversing, the potential for such a reverse flow may well be emerging. Her presentation also emphasized the essential role that international cooperation has played in advancing indicators methodologies in several critical areas, and pointed to the need for such collaboration in developing new types of indicators useful in the future: e.g., reliable indicators of international scientific mobility.
Three papers were presented in this session:
"The Knowledge-based Economy & its Challenge to China's Higher Education," by Xue Lan;
"Opportunities for Chinese and American Universities in the Knowledge-based Economy,"
by Richard C. Atkinson; and
"Strategy Management on Technological Innovation," by Cao Zhijiang.
Xue Lan's paper examined the readiness of the Chinese higher education system to educate the needed highly trained scientists, engineers, innovators, and managers for the new knowledge based economy. To move China ahead in the next century, the Chinese higher education system faces three critical challenges: (1). to increase the number of highly trained graduates; (2) to link knowledge generation in the university setting to the applications in the commercial market; and (3) to provide the continuing education needed in a fast moving society continuously generating new knowledge.
Feng Xuan and Chen Jin's paper, presented in Plenary Session I, reviewed data demonstrating that among several categories of industrial organizations in China, state-owned enterprises are the least innovative. Yet in Xue's opinion, the autonomy of Chinese universities remains less than that of state owned enterprises. At the same time, the environment in which universities dramatically changed to one that his highly market oriented.
Xue's paper pointed to several issues that are grounds for concern about the readiness and capacity of the Chinese higher education system to meet the challenges of the knowledge-based economy. First, limited autonomy of the universities from central government control. Second, limited capacity in the universities, which has a per capita enrollment rate and percentage of the total population over 25 years with higher education resembling the poorest tier of countries, and far lower than that of the highly technical industrialized nations. Hence, there is significant imbalance in the supply and demand for such highly educated Chinese graduates. This results in a third problem as high school education increasingly becomes preparation for university entrance examinations rather than focused on education and the Government mandates increases in admissions without consideration of the ability and capacity of the universities to provide quality education. Fourth, universities do not necessarily train graduates in the fields needed by the new economy. Fifth, there is insufficient Government support to pay the costs of quality higher education and Government imposed limits on tuition precludes this as a source to narrow the gap.
Richard Atkinson's paper provided an historical view of the development of the academic base for the knowledge-based economy in the United States as a way of identifying possible themes the Chinese system could consider. He noted that theory had grown up around performance in the United States, resulting in a "new growth theory" which related investments in R&D to economic growth and identified the important role of Government supported research in the universities in driving this relationship. Federally supported research carried out in the universities has catalyzed private investment in R&D, leading to the creation of new jobs and industry near the universities producing highly trained graduates. Well educated, technologically advanced graduates willing to take risks are available for the innovative, small, entrepreneurial high tech companies that spring up when other local conditions such as the availability of venture capital and accounting and legal services are favorable. It is important to note that universities can play a proactive role in creating this environment-not only in providing well educated graduates, but also in facilitating technology transfer to industry through programs intended to link the knowledge generation in the universities to business opportunities. Government policy can facilitate this, as for example the laws in the United States that gave patent and licensing rights for inventions supported by Federal funds to universities.
Atkinson suggested that the lesson from his analysis of most relevance to China is the in the recognition in the United States that, in his words, "universities are priceless sources of ideas that can create jobs, give birth to new industries, and stimulate productivity growth". How this principle is applied may differ between the United States and China.
Cao Zhijiang's paper traced the history of Legend Holdings, Limited, as one model of this process for China. Eleven technically trained members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' (CAS) Institute of Computer Technology founded the company in 1984, with "venture capital" from CAS. Their first product, a Chinese character processing system, was versatile and useful. A decision was made to tailor the product to the non-professional PC user, a market that did not exist in China at the time, rather than seeking to fill mainframe computer needs. The wisdom of this decision is evident in retrospect. Legend has surged ahead in sales and market share in China and the rest of East and South East Asia. Several principles of business have permitted this rapid growth: (1) product development and marketing were closely coordinated; (2) after sales service was geared to customer support; and (3) technical staff engaged customers and learned first hand of customer needs so that product improvement was continuous and geared to the market. The continuing orientation of Legend-to integrate high tech R&D into the market-is reflected in its allocation of its R&D budget, with 20 percent devoted to basic research, 30 percent to key technology research, and 50 percent to application research for the development of new high tech products.
The personal computer industry is a good example of the possibilities of well organized R&D tailored to marketable products, as sales have taken off all over the world, and at the same time it may be one that is difficult to replicate with such speed and success in other industries. In China, the further maturation of Legend to a public company, owned in part by its employees, is another striking change from the state-owned enterprise model, and very much in line with the situation in the United States and other highly technical industrialized countries.
Several themes emerged in the ensuing discussion. First, there is great potential in distance learning methods for high tech education, between the United States and China, for example, or from technically advanced, research intensive universities to students elsewhere within China. This is applicable, for example, to the didactic components of biomedical research training, including clinical research methodology, clinical trials, and clinical data collecting. Some of this can be accomplished by internet, teleconferencing and other electronic communication modalities.
Second, peer level training, both national and international, can be a highly effective mechanism for information transfer, supplementing the senior mentor-trainee interaction in a less formal environment. Opportunities for U.S. trainees to work in China alongside Chinese trainees should be fostered, in addition to increasing opportunities for Chinese students to train in U.S. institutions. Relationships developed during training are often sustained lifelong, and are the basis for establishing and sustaining close and trusting research collaborations.
Third, research training should be carried out in the course of conducting research, where methodological tools are applied to the solution of research questions. The opportunity to link theory with practice in the solution of real problems is essential. In the course of developing undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate research training, there must be sufficient resources to carry the burden of frequent experimental failures, and resources to allow trainees to problem solve to get beyond the barriers. Without this there can be but little progress. At the same time, it is necessary to establish some peer review process to review the productivity of training laboratories and centers. In the United States, this is accomplished by the need to renew Federally supported research grants through the competitive peer review process for grants for both research and training.
Three papers were presented in this session:
"The Knowledge-based Economy and Human Resources Mobility", by Chen Hao;
"The Role of the University in Promoting Regional Economic and Social Development", by Chu Xuelin; and
"Training Scientists and Engineers for the 21st Century", by Edward Parrish.
Chen Hao's paper was a detailed account of the emergence and evolution of China's post-doctoral system, particularly as it has developed in the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The post-doc system provides real though still limited mobility within China's scientific community, a significant break from the past.
Chu Xuelin's paper was a thoughtful discussion of the multiple roles of the university in economic and social development, from generating to disseminating knowledge, and from training personnel to energizing local culture. Particularly valuable was the paper's focus on regional development dynamics.
Edward Parrish's paper started with a comprehensive discussion of the changing nature of the global economy and thus the necessity to change the education of engineers. It went on to present the model of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, which emphasizes flexibility, teamwork, and inter-cultural experience in addition to the technical training.
Four papers were presented during this session:
"China's Basic Research at the Turn of the Century and its National Goals", by Zhang Cunhao;
"Globalization of R&D", by John McTague;
"Changing Role of Industrial R&D", by Zhang Fan and Fan Aihua; and
"The Evolving Face of Science
and Technology Policies," by Gerald Hane.
Zhang Cunhao's remarks indicated that in several important ways,
Chinese thinking about basic research is both consistent with,
and different from, thinking in the United States. The differences
stem in part from China's level of economic and technological
development and from the characteristics of its national research
priorities and system of research institutions.
Zhang's paper noted that China's basic research goals are intended to address five main scientific and technological development objectives; namely:
1. preparing for future high technology
development in ways which would allow China
to leapfrog into leadership in the development of future technological
trajectories and
in exploiting future industrial opportunities (e.g., work in nanoelectronics);
2. aiding in the upgrading, or
renovation, of traditional industries (e.g., work in seed breeding,
geophysical work in oil prospecting);
3. providing radically new ideas
for reconceptualizing practical problems (e.g., mathematical
applications in finance);
4. generating truly original ideas which may not have immediate practical application; and
5. serving higher education and the advanced training of high level manpower
Expenditures for basic research in China have increased steadily since the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) was founded in 1986, with the rate of increase being most apparent since 1992. Basic research support is scheduled gradually to come to occupy a larger share-10 percent, up from its present six percent-of the nation's R&D spending. [NB: in the United States, basic research currently accounts for slightly more than 16 percent of total national R&D expenditures.] Zhang also noted that, with the initiation of the National Basic Research Program ("973"-a program of targeted, mission-oriented, top down, "basic" research), the share of NSFC funding for "pure," investigator initiated research has been adjusted upward from 30 percent to 42.5 percent of NSFC research support. In this sense, NSFC is playing a role analogous to the "balance wheel" function that Richard Atkinson attributed to the U.S. National Science Foundation in his presentation during Plenary Session II.
John McTague's presentation explored the reasons for the globalization of R&D and presented a number of measures of how extensive the process has become. Using data from the U.S. National Science Board's Science and Engineering Indicators-1998, McTague illustrated the trends in globalization as seen in corporate R&D patterns, big science projects (of both the central facility and distributed categories), and in "ordinary", small-scale research. The reasons for globalizing trends differ somewhat among the three areas, but common features include:
McTague suggested that the trends he identified are almost certain to continue into the foreseeable future, making physical distance an increasingly less important factor in scientific cooperation and making scientific research, perhaps, "the most global of human activities." At the same time, the high costs of industrial R&D are forcing both increasing cooperation among competitors and increasing international industrial concentration, as firms merge and consolidate (as in the automobile industry) in search of economies of scale. Thus, patterns of international science and technology will show both new forms of centralization-as seen in industrial consolidation and in some "big" science activities-and new types of decentralization in a spatially dispersed, distributed community linked via electronic communication.
Zhang Fan and Fan Aihua's paper considered the changes that need to take place in China's national system of innovation if the country's industrial R&D activities are to contribute more effectively to its economy. Unlike the situation in the United States, Japan and Western Europe, the central government still provides the majority of the support for R&D in China. Most of those funds go to public research institutions rather than enterprises. Likewise, most Chinese scientists and engineers work in public research institutions or universities located in large cities.
As is true in other countries, most researchers in public research institutions and universities lack either the training or motivation to chose research topics or research directions with a commercializable end product or process in mind. Successful industrial innovation, as has been demonstrated by many studies, requires that research, product development, and marketing should be closely coupled. But until recently and with some notable exceptions (e.g., Legends), neither researchers nor managers in Chinese enterprises (particularly state-owned enterprises) have been trained or encouraged to think in those terms. Nor are those enterprises organized to facilitate such close coupling.
Zhang and Fan's paper pointed out that this situation has led to a serious brain drain. Many state-owned enterprises have not provided sufficiently challenging work or adequate facilities to their young engineers. As a result, many have joined private companies or emigrated (e.g. to Singapore) so that the average age of engineers at many large state-owned enterprises has actually increased during the past 20 years.
With economic reform and the opening of the country to foreign investment, the situation regarding industrial R&D has improved. For example, in 1988, state-owned enterprises accounted for less than 14 percent of all patents granted in the country; today they account for almost 30 percent. Zhang and Fang made several recommendations both for the education and training of engineers and the organization of research within enterprises that they believe can lead to further improvements.
Gerald Hane's presentation began by noting that over the decade of the 1990s, a shift in the shape of the science and technology enterprise in the United States has brought about a continuing evolution of the country's science and technology policies. Important elements that underlie this shift include a substantial increase in industrial investments in research and development, more modest growth in the U.S. government's investment in research and development, and the rapid expansion of venture capital investments. In response, government policy has given priority to the use of public-private partnerships as a means of meeting societal goals, to supporting long-term basic research, to improving the diffusion of innovations, and to promoting linkages such as those between universities and industry.
Hane emphasized that university-industry research partnerships have gained greater attention over the decade, with interest heightened by the increase in venture capital activities. Here the principal role of the government has been to provide a legal framework for these partnerships. One challenge is to ensure that these partnerships energize the education and research functions of universities without compromising openness and the pursuit of knowledge.
The prepared presentations and ensuing discussions in the plenary and parallel breakout sessions at the October 1999 science policy seminar in Beijing amply justified the now familiar contention that the transition to a knowledge-based economy in both China and the United States is being driven by science and technology. More important for the purposes of the seminar, the demands of the knowledge-based economy are changing the character of the science and technology enterprise itself, at both the national and international levels.
The intimate coupling between the knowledge-based economy and national science and technology enterprises, evident in presentations and discussions throughout the seminar, was demonstrated most explicitly during Plenary Session III on The Changing Character of R&D. Several such changes were identified, primarily:
1. Changes in the roles of, and
relationships among, the principal supporters and performers of
R&D;
2. Changes in the capabilities required of the science and technology
workforce and the resultant
impacts on the institutions that will train and utilize the workforce
of the 21st century;
3. The critical need for adequate and reliable quantitative information
(including new types of statistical
indicators) to gauge the multiple, changing aspects of the global,
knowledge-based economy; and
4. Globalization of R&D and
its impacts on national science and technology systems and on
international
R&D cooperation.
Roles and Relationships. In his opening remarks as chair of the second half of Plenary Session III, Charles Larson highlighted the growing importance of U.S. industry as both principal funder and principal performer of R&D. According to the most recent estimates, U.S. industrial investment in R&D in 1999 are expected to be $166 billion, up 12 percent over the estimated $148 billion that was invested in R&D by industry during 1998. This $166 billion represents 68 percent of the $245 billion total R&D effort in the U.S. in 1999. The U.S. Government is expected to provide $68 billion for R&D in 1999, or 28 percent of the total, while universities are expected to provide $6 billion of their own funds (2 percent) and non-profit organizations is expected to provide $5 billion (2 percent). In addition to its own funds of $168 billion for R&D, industry expected to receive some $20 billion from the Departments of Defense and Energy, NASA, and other Government agencies for R&D in 1999. Thus industry will perform some $188 billion worth of R&D this year, or 77 percent of the total R&D effort in the United States.
U.S. industrial R&D investments, measured in current dollars, have increased 71 percent over the past five years and 126 percent over the past ten. These increases represent double-digit annual growth rates; in only three of the past ten years have the increases been less than 10 percent. Of the $166 billion performed by industry on R&D in 1999, 71 percent will be for development activities, 22 percent will be for applied research, and approximately 7 percent will be for directed basic research. Directed basic research has increased from $6.1 billion in 1994 to $10.9 billion in 1999, an increase of 79 percent, or a rate of nearly 15 percent a year. Applied research has also grown significantly, rising from $19.4 billion in 1994 to an estimated $37.0 billion in 1999, an increase of 91 percent.
U.S. companies are also investing more in R&D abroad. A recent U.S. Commerce Department report, Globalizing Industrial R&D, indicated that R&D expenditures in the United States by foreign-owned companies tripled from $6.5 billion in 1987 to $19.7 billion in 1997. U.S. companies also increased their R&D spending in other countries, rising from $5.2 billion in 1987 to $14.1 billion in 1997.
While the prominence of the U.S. Government as a supporter of R&D has continued to decline relative to that of private industry, its importance in encouraging in formulating and implementing national policies for effective investments has become more important. Government policies now aim to use public-private partnerships as means for meeting societal goals, and to provide a legal framework for these partnerships. Government also continues to play the vital role as the principal supporter of basic research in universities and other non-profit institutions.
In China, the central government remains the principal supporter of R&D, and the bulk of R&D funding has traditionally gone to public research institutions and universities in major cities rather than to enterprises. The study reported in Feng Xuan and Chen Jin's paper in Plenary Session I shows that the overall innovation performance in state-owned enterprises is considerably less than in all other types; e.g., joint ventures and private companies. Moreover, state-owned enterprises have the smallest proportion of new international products and accounted for only 9.5 percent of total sales. This situation is showing some improvement, as China's policy makers take steps to promote more R&D investments in enterprises. They also have come to recognize that in order for industrial research to be effective, it must be understood and organized in a way that is fundamentally different from that of public research institutions.
Although industry has become both the dominant funder and performer of R&D in the United States, the character of industrial research itself has changed. Twenty years ago, industry performed a reasonable amount of basic research. Today, most industrial research focuses is short term and goal oriented. As a result, industry now relies much more heavily than in the past on the basic research performed by universities.
The success of the U.S. system can be traced to Federal funding of basic research in universities. However, the emphasis on investigator initiated research proposals and the peer review system in which peer working scientists judge the merit of proposals for funding are essential for promoting creativity and quality. The process is a continuous competitive one in which merit, innovation, and relevance remain the major criteria for support.
In the United States, university researchers have created many new, high-tech small businesses themselves. In China, a few universities and research institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (most notably Legends) have also been successful in starting profitable high-tech businesses.
The Science and Technology Workforce. In his introductory remarks as chair of Plenary Session II, R. Thomas Weimer suggested that human resources development, particularly in engineering and the applied sciences, is one of the most important challenges that both China and the United States face. Industrial employers are seeking university graduates who are broader and more interdisciplinary in nature than were their predecessors. Industry needs people with the ability to think logically, adapt quickly, work in teams, communicate their results succinctly, and graduates with a yearning for lifelong learning to keep them ahead of technical obsolescence.
Perhaps the most important of the evolving demands on research universities is to become not just creators of knowledge and knowledgeable individuals, but also to expand their role and methods in the rapid diffusion of knowledge. This is not necessarily a new role for some universities in some disciplinary areas-for example, agricultural research in the United States-but for others it is a dramatic break from their long held views of the role of their universities in human resource development and their role in the innovation system. While executed regionally (as in the case of California, highlighted in Richard Atkinson's paper in Plenary Session II) , these changes in the ways which universities transfer knowledge aggregate nationally, and promote more rapid national economic growth.
Xue Lan's paper in Plenary Session II suggested that reform is urgently required if the Chinese higher education system is to become capable of reorienting education to the output-demand needs of a knowledge based economy. To accomplish this will require that universities be given more autonomy in several areas, including academic programs and curriculum, administration, and fiscal matters. Attention will need to be directed to the education of a managerial group. Quality of education will need to be insured by development of standards and accreditation procedures. And of major importance, private universities will need to be encouraged, including universities with international linkages.
The trend toward university-industry cooperation beginning to emerge in China has obvious positive implications for the dissemination and application of scientific and technological innovation. But should there be limits to university engagement in business activities, given industry's interest in short-term results and the mission of universities to promote long-term basic research? Chu Xuelin mentioned in his presentation in Parallel Breakout Session II that the University of Science and Technology in Hefei has created hundreds of companies. How does that affect the basic research and educational missions of the university?
Universities can contribute a great deal to the development of their local regions, as Richard Atkinson's presentation in Plenary Session II demonstrated in the case of California. In China, the Science and Technology University in Hefei provides a good example. However, most good universities in China are concentrated in a few cities. How does that influence the national pattern of innovation? What can be done to encourage the coordination and spread of their contribution to the national economy?
The Worchester Polytechnic Institute model presented by Edward Parrish in Parallel Breakout Session II addresses many challenges for engineers in the new economy of the 221st century. Although it is probably not practical for Chinese universities to copy the model, it suggests ways to improve the training of engineers and university students in general. Rather than having students specialize as soon as they begin college, Chinese universities may benefit from introducing the concept of liberal arts education. Chinese colleagues say that some universities are beginning to think about such changes.
The free and efficient allocation of human resources for science and technology remains a problem for China. The country's relatively recent post-doctoral system has had some success in promoting mobility among different institutions and sectors. But other types of policy initiatives may also be required.
Importance of Quantitative Information. The three papers presented in Parallel Breakout Session I demonstrated the critical importance of measurement and methodologies both for policy making and for research in science and technology policy. Policy makers in both the public and private sectors rely on reliable, internationally comparable science and engineering indicators data in making decisions on critical issues, such as resource allocation among various fields of science and priority setting for specific types of projects. Additionally, science policy scholars depend on this type of work for developing policy recommendations. Their analyses are only as good as the underlying data. There is no substitute for public funding and public provision of such data.
It is essential to examine, periodically and critically, the question of whether the indicators data being developed intersect sufficiently with what policy-makers need. This is not to say that those who develop quantitative science and engineering indicators should tailor all data production to serve policy-makers. Autonomous research deserves a place. But it is essential to make sure that policy makers are among the users who find the data useful to have. To this end, the National Science Foundation's Science and Engineering Program carries out periodic customer surveys as a means for determining the current and probable future needs of users in government, industry and academia.
A great deal more attention needs to be paid to measuring the outputs of R&D and the outcomes that reflect the impact of science and technology on society. A very good job has been done on measuring the inputs to science and technology, but that's not what policy-makers care most about. Papers presented at the seminar provide useful frameworks to begin work on measuring the outputs of R&D and its impacts on the economy and society. At the same time, it is essential to acknowledge that in moving from inputs to outputs and especially to outcomes, the error bands around measurements inevitably grow.
The papers presented at the seminar suggest also the importance of utilizing multiple measures no matter what subject is being. International collaboration can be a particularly effective way to develop better measures of R&D output and outcomes-data that would be particularly useful for policy making.
Globalization of R&D. John McTague concluded his presentation during Plenary Session III by suggesting that since one-sixth of all scientific publications are now co-authored by investigators from more than one country, scientific research may be the most global of human activities, and may also be a leading indicator for other fields. In addition to McTague's, globalization, was an important if implicit subtheme in many of the other presentations at the seminar and in ensuing discussions. Although most participants tacitly assumed that the impacts of globalization would, on balance, be positive, potentially negative impacts were also recognized.
The discussion that followed McTague's presentation touched upon the implications of the globalization of R&D for Sino-U.S. cooperation in science and technology. Globalization will almost certainly condition bilateral ties. U.S perceptions of cooperation with China will increasingly be seen through the lenses of globalization. On the other hand, managing the effects of globalization is one the more challenging tasks facing China's science and technology development strategies, including relations with the United States. In particular, a major concern is how China can attract foreign corporate investment in research without having its research system become simply an appendage of the innovation systems of multinational firms.
Concern for the possible costs of globalization is evident in the United States as well. Some observers are questioning if trends such as the growth of foreign investment in U.S. R&D, and the large number of overseas students coming to U.S. universities, pose dangers that intellectual assets will be drained from the country. Similarly, questions have been asked about the high proportion of foreign born students in science and, especially, in engineering graduate programs, and about the growing reliance on foreign-born scientists and engineers by U.S. industry.
Richard Suttmeier noted that in spite of mutual gains, the political processes which shape the environment for international cooperation often focus on "relative gains"-whether one side gets disproportionate benefits relative to the other.
The time may be right to begin to anticipate possible future conflict over relative gains in U.S.-China science and technology relations in order that they not escalate into higher level conflict, as happened with U.S. science and technology relations with Japan during the 1980s. In the relative gains conflicts with Japan, much attention was focused on the issue of "asymmetrical access," where Japanese investigators had access to areas of U.S. R&D while U.S. investigators could not access comparable areas of Japanese R&D. These problems were, in part, a reflection of the different institutional arrangements and programmatic emphases in the two countries.
Suttmeier asked whether we could expect similar kinds of problems to develop in U.S. relations with China, or whether conditions in the early 21st century, as a result of the positive trends noted by McTague (e.g., the drastically reduced costs of collaboration, the international flows of human resources in science and education) will make the problems of institutional and programmatic asymmetry less of an issue. The differences in approaches to basic research, as indicated in Zhang Cuhnao's remarks in Plenary Session III, point to asymmetries in institutions and program assumptions, and may suggest the need for anticipatory discussions on how conflicts from asymmetries can be avoided, and assumptions harmonized.
The first, October 1999 Sino-U.S.-Science Policy Seminar constituted a useful beginning in the exchange of the types of information (including, importantly, a frank exchange about information on actual and perceived barriers) that have the potential of leading to more extensive and productive bilateral cooperation. But the work begun in Beijing needs to be expanded to include many other individual participants and organizations in both China and the United States, and also deepened to encompass more detail.
During the concluding session of the seminar, participants reviewed the principal issues, themes, and ideas from the prepared presentations and the ensuing discussions in order to identify tentative topics that could serve as a basis for future events in the proposed decade-long series of Sino-U.S. science policy dialogues. These included:
Participants agreed that one important objective of the proposed dialogues, in addition to exchanges of information and perspective, should be to engage a wider range of government and non-government institutions in both countries. Although the National Science Foundation and the National Natural Science Foundation of China will continue as the organizations responsible for events in the series, other organizations should also be closely involved and, in some instances, should assume primary responsibility for specific events. Examples of appropriate organizations include, on the U.S. side, other Federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health. Appropriate private sector organizations include the Industrial Research Institute; the National Academies of Science and Engineering; and a variety of professional science and engineering societies. Important Chinese organizations that ought to be involved include: the Ministry of Science and Technology; Chinese Government mission-oriented bodies such as the Ministry of Health; a wider range of institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; and the Chinese Association for Science and Technology. Topics for future workshops ought to be selected, in part, with a view towards establishing a network of organizations which participate in the dialogue.
In addition to organizing workshops in which a relatively small number of experts from the two countries engage in exchanges of information and perspectives, there would be considerable merit in a larger forum in which leading Chinese scientists and prominent U.S. scientists familiar with their work made presentations to invitees from the U.S. science policy community on the current status of their fields and their plans for the future.
Against this background, possible Sino-U.S. events to be organized within the next 12 to 24 months are:
Isn't it a pleasure to make practical use of the things you have studied? Isn't it a pleasure to have an old friend visit from afar?
Kung Fu-tzu (Confucius)
David Hart's presentation during Plenary Session I suggested a simple, if idealistic goal for the decade-long series of science policy dialogues that China and the United States plan to organize: namely, to develop a lively, international civil R&D society.
In the United States, the term "civil society" connotes a private, non-official grouping of individuals with common aims who join together to further their objectives. Hart's formulation, therefore, envisions a future in which scientists and engineers in both China and the United States can enjoy a lively, open, and productive interchange of views leading to useful and mutually beneficial research cooperation. Significant progress has been made towards this end since the United States and the Peoples Republic of China formally initiated scientific exchanges in 1979. However, the underlying rationale for a proposed decade-long series of science policy dialogues is that the time is ripe to permit an accelerated approach.
But of course a lively, international civil society of working scientists and engineers cannot exist or prosper without the active support and encouragement of their governments. Perhaps the principal challenges that emerged from the two days of discussion at Beijing were: (1) how to reduce actual and perceived barriers to international cooperation at both the level of working scientists and engineers and at the governance level; and (2) how to achieve an appropriate and effective balance between the roles of working scientists and their institutions on the one hand, and the roles of governments on the other, in furthering appropriate and productive cooperation.
It may be worth noting that the English word "policy" is derived from the same Greek root as "polis", designating the city. During the third century before the current era, Athenian philosophers and politicians spent a great deal of time debating the attributes of the ideal city, which they regarded as a microcosm of the ideal civil society. But of course they were already three centuries too late to have had any claim to originality. For during the sixth century before the current era, the scholar Kung Fu-tzu, known in the West as Confucius, was already teaching his countrymen the attributes of a just civil society.
Although the principal concern of the October 1999 Science Policy Seminar in Beijing was how to expand and make more effective scientific cooperation between the China and the United States in the 21st century, perhaps we were really asking how the teachings of Kung Fu-tzu, and of the Athenian philosophers who dealt with attributes of the ideal civil society three centuries later, can be adapted to our current knowledge-based, globalized circumstances.
Richard C. Atkinson, President
University of California
William A. Blanpied, Director
National Science Foundation Tokyo Regional Office
Embassy of the United States of America
David L. Bleyle
Counselor, Environment, Science and Technology
American Embassy, Beijing
Jennifer Sue Bond, Director
Science and Engineering Indicators Program
National Science Foundation
Alexander DeAngelis, Coordinator
East Asia and Pacific Section
Division of International Programs
National Science Foundation
Gerald J. Hane
Assistant Director for International Policy
Office of Science and Technology Policy
David M. Hart
Associate Professor of Public Policy
Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
Gerald Keusch, Director
Fogarty International Center and
Associate Director for International Research
National Institutes of Health
Charles F. Larson, Executive Director
Industrial Research Institute
John McTague,
Vice President for Research (retired)
Ford Motor Company
Sumiye Okubo
Associate Director for Industry Accounts
Bureau of Economic Analysis
U.S. Department of Commerce
Edward Alton Parrish, President
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
J. Thomas Ratchford, Distinguished
Visiting Professor
National Center for Technology and the Law
George Mason University
Richard P. Suttmeier, Professor
Department of Political Science
University of Oregon
Hongying Wang, Associate Professor
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
Syracuse University
R. Thomas Weimer, Director
Program Office
National Academy of Engineering
Cao Zhijiang, Vice President
Legend Holding Limited
Chang Qing, Deputy Director-General
Bureau of International Cooperation
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Chen Hao, Deputy Director-General
Bureau of Scientific Policy
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Chen Huai, Deputy Division Director
Bureau of International Cooperation
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Chen Jin, Associate Professor
amd Deputy Director
Institute of Management Science
Zhejiang University
Cheng Siwei, Professor and Director
General
Department of Management Sciences
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Chu Xuelin, Professor and Assistant
Dean
School of Business
University of Science and Technology of China
Fang Aihua, Lecturer
School of Business
Wuhan University
Fang Xin, Professor and Deputy
Director
Institute of Policy and Management,
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Feng Xuan, Deputy Division Director
Department of International Cooperation
Ministry of Science and Technology
Gao Changlin, Assistant Professor
National Research Center for Science and Technology Development
(NRCSTD)
Ministry of Science and Technology
Li Shantong, Professor and Director-General
Department of Development Strategy and Regional Economy
Development Research Center, The State Council
Mu Rongping, Associate Professor
and Director
Department. for Policy Studies
Institute of Policy and Management
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Nie Ming, Professor-Director
S&T Development Research Center
School of Management,
Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Su Mingshan, Associate Professor
and Deputy Division Head
Division of Energy System Analysis
Institute of Techno-Economics and Energy System Analysis
Tsinghua University 100084
Wang Shouyang, Deputy Director
General
Department of Management Sciences
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Wu Shuyao, Professor
Bureau of Policy
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Xu Yong Chang, Secretary General
and Research Fellow
China Society for Science &Technology Indicators
Xue Lan, Professor and Deputy
Director
Development Research Academy for the 21st Century
Tsinghua University
Xu Weixuan, Professor and Director
Institute of Policy and Management,
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zhang Cunhao, President
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Zhang Fan , Deputy Division Director
Department of Technology Equipment
State Commission for Economy and Trade
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