Dora Marinova

Models of Innovation

Abstract: This chapter presents a historical examination of models used to explain innovation. It focuses on the attempts to describe innovation as a process generating new products and methods and outline the activities involved. The purpose of these models is to explain how all parties come together to generate commercially viable technologies. The overview includes six generations of models, namely black box, linear, interactive, systems, evolutionary models and innovative milieux. Each of them is explained by addressing the following issues: conceptualization background, the model itself and its elements, explanatory power, related models and concepts, and further research directions.

Modelling sustainability

The article presents a general classification of the models being developed in the area of sustainability arguing that the existing models represent the historical conceptualisation of sustainability starting from environmental constraints and moving towards economic valuation and social behaviour and policies. Coupled with computer power, sophisticated models with a varying levels of complexity have also been developed (static/dynamic; local/global; specific/general). However as any model is a simplification of the complex reality, the main purpose of any sustainability modelling (and the newly emerging area of sustainometrics) should be to allow dynamic representation, including the co-evolution of the sustainability systems and the role of humans as sustainability guardians.

Nanotechnology strength indicators: international rankings based on US patents

Technological strength indicators (TSIs) based on patent statistics for 1975–2000 are used to analyse patenting of nanotechnology in the USA, and to compile international rankings for the top 12 foreign patenting countries (namely Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and Taiwan). As the indicators are not directly observable, various proxy variables are used, namely the technological specialization index for national priorities, patent shares for international presence, citation rate for the contribution of patents to knowledge development and rate of assigned patents for potential commercial benefits. The best performing country is France, followed by Japan and Canada. It is shown that expertise and strength in nanotechnology are not evenly distributed among the technologically advanced countries, with the TSIs revealing different emphases in the development of nanotechnology.

Resilience thinking : a renewed system approach for sustainability science

This paper examines the contribution of resilience thinking for social-ecological systems (SESs) in understanding sustainability and the need to preserve natural resources in the face of external perturbations. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis, the literature survey shows the increased importance of resilience and its integration into the interdisciplinary area of sustainability studies. By exploring the links between resilience and sustainability, the analysis finds that these two concepts share some similarities and also highlight the differences. The discussion of resilience indicators, measuring criteria, models and management issues reveals how resilience contributes to sustainability science and in what ways the concept can be used to measure resilience in terms of sustainability. Most existing studies emphasise the ecological aspects of resilience, but only by including human activities in the modelling can resilience thinking inform sustainability in a meaningful way. The paper concludes defining issues requiring further investigation, such as identifying and managing the drivers and key elements of resilience in SESs, exploring the dynamics between critical variables of SESs and the system feedbacks to external perturbations, as well as evaluating policies and engaging stakeholders for building resilience.

Eastern European patenting activities in the USA

The patenting activities of the former centrally planned economies in the US between 1976 and 1999 are examined. The technological performance of Eastern Europe is assessed and compared with that of the OECD countries. A sharp decline is observed as a consequence of the economic changes undergone by these countries in recent years. The study reveals some common technological strengths, such as in the areas of petroleum, coal, chemicals and other related products, and country-specific advantages, such as in mining in the former USSR, Poland and Bulgaria, textiles, clothing, footwear and leather in the former Czechoslovakia, printing, publishing and recorded media in the former East Germany, health in the former Yugoslavia, energy in Romania and design in Slovenia. Recommendations are made for the future use of foreign patents.

Social impacts of mining: Changes within the local social landscape

Abstract Understanding the social impacts at a community level triggered by mining operations is a challenging exercise. This paper reflects on a community’s perceptions and interpretation of these impacts as well as on the qualitative changes in the local social landscape and their implications for a sustainable future. The findings are based on an exploratory research carried out in a small established settlement in Western Australia. Considered as an agricultural community for decades, Boddington currently hosts two mining operations. Even though mining has been carried out there for decades, the recent opening of a large-scale mining operation is triggering significant demographic changes which result in a structural and functional transformation of the local social environment. Two new phenomena, namely transiency and a dependency culture are identified. Maintaining existing levels of social and economic capital as well as mobilising the community’s resources to capitalise on the opportunities associated with mining, are identified as key challenges for the settlement’s sustainability.

Resilience thinking: a bibliometric analysis of socio-ecological research

Resilience thinking is a rising topic in environmental sciences and sustainability discourse. In this paper, a bibliometric method is used to analyse the trends in resilience research in the contexts of ecological, economic, social, and integrated socio-ecological systems. Based on 919 cited publications in English which appeared between 1973 and 2011, the analysis covers the following issues: general statistical description, influential journal outlets and top cited articles, geographic distribution of resilience publications and covered case studies, national importance of resilience researchers and leading research organisations by country. The findings show that resilience thinking continues to dominate environmental sciences and has experienced a dramatic increase since its introduction in 1973. More recently, new interest has emerged for broadening the scope and applying the concept to socio-economic systems and sustainability science. The paper also shows that resilience research overall is dominated by USA, Australia, UK and Sweden, and makes the case for the need to expand this work further in the urgent need for practically oriented solutions that would help arrest further ecological deterioration.

Modelling trends and volatility in ecological patents in the USA

Ecological patent registrations have been increasing in the USA steadily over time. The paper analyses trends and volatility in US ecological patents in the USA from 1975 to 1997. Germany contributed more than 10% of the total number of US ecological patents, and has been by far the strongest foreign performer. The time-varying nature of the volatility of the ecological patent share, namely the ratio of US ecological patents to total US patents, is examined using monthly data from January 1975 to December 1997. As negative and positive movements in the patent share may have differential impacts on innovative activity, and hence on volatility, both symmetric and asymmetric models of volatility are estimated. The asymmetric AR(1)-GJR(1,1) model is found to be suitable for modelling the ecological patent share in the USA.

Indigenous Knowledge and Intellectual Property: A Sustainability Agenda

The paper argues that the current ways of protecting intellectual property are limited in their scope for recognizing indigenous rights to indigenous knowledge. Indigenous knowledge is often defined as being holistic and collectively owned, and an appropriate protection should allow for maintaining the cultural and physical environment that has generated it. Copyright 2006 The Authors Journal compilation

Evolution and governance of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry of China

The high-speed growth of Chinas biotechnology industry during the past 20 years presents an excellent opportunity to examine its overall evaluation and governance from the perspective of science and technology policies. Although Chinas biotechnology industry has achieved tremendous extension both in scale and structure, the strengths it has gained from achievements in research and development activities have been significantly weakened in relation to processes of commercialization. After examining the definition of Chinas biotechnology industry as well as its evolution, the authors of this paper employ Actor-Networks Theory as a basic theoretical framework to reveal how Chinas biotechnology industry develops in the form of evolving networks within the countrys social context and to identify what kinds of relationships exist among the relevant factors. Our hope is to provide guiding insights for improving the governance of Chinas biotechnology industry both in policy and in management practices.