With the aspiration of reaching higher income status, academics and politicians alike in many developing countries are urging for investment in the expansion of science and technology education and research. Even students are encouraged to take oath to build a "scientifically-minded nation" by pursuing science education. But in the absence of job creation for science graduates in creating new wealth, such inspiration often ends up in frustration. The West, particularly the USA, beacons us to invest in science to open endless frontier for growth. In many indicators such as the number of science and technology (S&T) graduates, R&D investment, publications, Ph.D graduates and patents produced, developing countries are far behind those role model countries. Does it mean that there is a natural correlation of those indicators with jobs and wealth creation? If that is the case, why the growing number of science and engineering graduates, as high as 70 per cent in developing countries like India or Bangladesh, are either unemployed or employed in non S&T jobs?
After the World War II, Dr. V. Bush while justifying the need for investment in science to create jobs in his landmark report "Science the Endless Frontier" presented to President Roosevelt, stated, "Surely we will not get there by standing still, merely by making the same things we made before and selling them at the same or higher prices. We will not get ahead in international trade unless we offer new and more attractive and cheaper products. Where will these new products come from? How will we find ways to make better products at lower cost? The answer is clear. There must be a stream of new scientific knowledge to turn the wheels of private and public enterprise." It's clearly stated that the purpose of investing in science has been for the USA to acquire the ability to offer better products at lower cost-by pursuing product and process innovation. But, despite many calls and growing investment in science education, how are developing countries doing to add local innovations to products they produce and the process they use to produce them, so that quality improves and cost decreases?
On one hand, developing countries are increasing the production of S&T graduates, and on the other, they are pursuing the policy of technology import based labour-intensive productive activities. To deal with the eroding competitiveness, as imported technology is getting cheaper than labour, these countries are pursuing diverse incentives ranging across easy loans, better infrastructure, lower taxes, currency depreciation and even cash incentives. But these conventional tools are no longer enough to maintain competitiveness in this globally connected economy. The option they should pay attention to is to engage growing number of S&T graduates to unlock the endless frontier of wealth creation. As a matter of fact, this appears to be by far the most challenging development barrier for developing countries to sustain growth. But how should they proceed to open this frontier? Whom should they follow?
In comparing options to follow, we should keep in mind that the objective is to produce better products at lower cost by taking the advantage of science for producing profitable revenue in globally competitive trade. Basically, there have been three distinctive steps: 1. basic research to pursue scientific discovery; 2. applied research to develop useful component technologies; and 3. fusion of technologies to innovate commercial solutions.
Basic research produces general knowledge which has virtually no commercial value. Only a small fraction of this body of knowledge is the target for developing meaningful technology at any situation. Through the expansion of science education, we basically produce graduates carrying this general knowledge. The USA has been pursuing basic research-based approach in creating jobs and wealth out of science. Funding for basic research to advance the edge of defence and expand trade in military equipment made out of the findings of such basic research has been the core strategy of the USA to create jobs and wealth out of science and technology. Such approach does not appear to be replicable for developing countries.
As for applied research, the hurdle of developing or improving component technologies by taking the advantage of available scientific knowledge appears to be a daunting task as well. Upon a scientific discovery, it takes decades to develop commercially viable component technologies. For example, Sony invested over more than a decade to mature basic invention of charge couple device technology to produce commercially viable digital image sensors. Therefore, such approach of turning science into jobs and wealth through profitable revenue generation does not appear to be appropriate for developing countries.
The third option is about the fusion of available component technologies with science to innovate products and processes so that better quality products could be delivered at lower cost. This approach focuses on fusion of scientific knowledge with component technologies with the support of software to innovate both products and processes. For example, fusion of the science of poultry farming could be fused with sensors and softwares to have smarter feeding to reduce the cost and improve the quality of chickens and eggs. To keep the complexity at a manageable level, instead of targeting to produce technologically more complex products, the focus should be on improving whatever is being produced and traded. To succeed along this path, scientists and engineers should closely work with existing producers, mostly to improve processes through component technology fusion so that products, which are already being produced, could be improved and cost of production could be reduced-expanding the trade.
To capitalise on this potential, developing countries should rationalise import duties on capital machinery and incentives for collaborative R&D and sourcing of local innovations. Upon achieving success in pursing this option, step-wise upward path should be targeted for higher value addition and job creation.
It's obvious that developing counties must harness science to augment labour and raw material in creating wealth. But unfortunately there is no natural correlation between jobs, wealth and conventional indicators of S&T. The focus of the journey for exploiting science should be to acquire the capability of offering better products, whether existing or new, at lower cost. A well-thought-out progression path should be engineered starting from improving existing products to opening windows for offering new products through both product and process innovation. Instead of counting S&T graduates or publications, the focus should be on the improvement of products and process through local innovation for creating the pathway of job and wealth creation from science. Otherwise, there is a strong possibility that investment in science in terms of growing number of S&T graduates or increasing R&D finance may turn out to be a wasteful expenditure.
M Rokonuzzaman Ph.D is academic, researcher and activist on
technology, innovation and policy.
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