Learning from a Funders' Collaborative: The Human Services Strategic Restructuring Pilot Project

In 2009, Eighteen funders in Northeast Ohio joined together in the Human Services Strategic Restructuring Pilot Project (the Collaborative) to examine how to support nonprofit organizations in strategic restructuring. This the final report on that project

National Innovation Network at the Crossroads – in Search of a New Support Formula for Proinnovative Services for Small and Medium Enterprises

Celem artykułu jest analiza jakościowa systemu wsparcia innowacyjnej przedsiębiorczości opartego na Krajowej Sieci Innowacji oferującej usługi proinnowacyjne dla małych i średnich przedsiębiorstw w Polsce. Formułowane wnioski oparte są na wynikach ogólnopolskich badań przeprowadzonych przez autora wśród firm sektora MŚP, będących zarówno beneficjentami usług KSI (ogółem zbadano 381 podmiotów), jak i firm niekorzystających wcześniej z tych usług (próba badawcza liczyła 1100 podmiotów). Podstawowe zastrzeżenia zgłaszane przez małych i średnich przedsiębiorców dotyczą pasywności tych ośrodków w budowaniu partnerskiej współpracy, zdolności do rozpoznania rzeczywistych potrzeb przedsiębiorstwa oraz umiejętności dostosowania oferty usług w odpowiedzi na rzeczywiste potrzeby przedsiębiorstw. W artykule zawarto rekomendacje zmian w systemie świadczenia usług proinnowacyjnych w ramach wsparcia publicznego oferowanego przez ośrodki Krajowej Sieci Innowacji w odniesieniu do „filozofii”, zakresu i instrumentów wsparcia

Sub-Saharan Africa at a crossroads: a quantitative analysis of regional development

This repository item contains a single issue of The Pardee Papers, a series papers that began publishing in 2008 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. The Pardee Papers series features working papers by Pardee Center Fellows and other invited authors. Papers in this series explore current and future challenges by anticipating the pathways to human progress, human development, and human well-being. This series includes papers on a wide range of topics, with a special emphasis on interdisciplinary perspectives and a development orientation.Sub-Saharan Africa is at a crossroads of development. Despite a quarter of a century of economic reforms propagated by national policies and international financial agencies and institutions, sub-Saharan Africa is still lagging in development. In this paper, the authors adopt two techniques using both qualitative (e.g. governance) and quantitative factors (e.g., GDP) to examine regional patterns of development in sub-Saharan Africa. More specifically, they examine and analyze similarities and differences among the countries in this region using a multivariate statistical technique, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and a unsupervised neural network called Kohonen’s Self-Organizing Map (SOM) to cluster levels of development. PCA serves as a tool for determining regional patterns while SOM is more useful for determining continental patterns in development. Both PCA and SOM results show a “developed” cluster in Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Gabon). SOM exhibits a cluster of least developed countries in southern Western Africa and western Central Africa. The results demonstrate that the applied techniques are highly effective to compress multidimensional qualitative and quantitative data sets to extract relevant information about development from a policy perspective. Our analysis indicates the significance of governance variables in some clusters while a combination of variables explains other regional clusters. Zachary Tyler works for a consulting firm in Massachusetts that conducts program evaluations for energy efficiency programs, and he continues to work on statistical and geospatial analyses of human development issues. In 2010, he will receive a master’s degree in energy and environmental analysis from Boston University. Sucharita Gopal is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Geography and Environment and a member of the Cognitive & Neural Systems (CNS) Technology Lab at Boston University. She teaches and conducts research in geographical information systems (GIS), spatial analysis and modeling, and remote sensing for environmental and public health applications. Her recent research includes the development of a marin integrated decision analysis system (MIDAS) for Belize, Panama, and Massachusetts, and a post-disaster geospatial risk model for Haiti. This paper is part of the Africa 2060 Project, a Pardee Center program of research, publications, and symposia exploring African futures in various aspects related to development on continental and regional scales. For more information, visit www-staging.bu.edu/pardee/research/

Less-developed countries and innovation in health: notes and data about the Brazilian case

This communication discusses the specificity of health innovation in a lessdeveloped country, investigating the Brazilian case. To evaluate the specificity of the Brazilian system, this communication presents data about employment, expenditures, industrial firms in health-related industrial sectors, scientific resources, and diffusion of medical equipment. This communication concludes summarising the main characteristics of the Health Innovation System in Brazil.health; innovation; Brazil

Information Outlook, January 1998

Volume 2, Issue 1https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_1998/1000/thumbnail.jp

The environmental benefits of investment in agricultural science and technology: an application of global spatial benefit transfer

Food security is a major current and future policy concern. The world population is projected to reach 9 billion by 2050 and continuing growth in economic output and incomes is expected to result in changing food consumption patterns. In particular the wider adoption of ‘Western’ diets will result in both higher calorie intake and greater meat consumption. Continuing climate change is expected to add further pressures to agricultural production. This paper presents the results of a global analysis funded by the TEEB study on the environmental benefits of investment in agricultural knowledge, science and technology, specifically in terms of closing the gaps between developing and developed country agricultural productivity. The results show that by easing pressures on land use change on terrestrial biomes (forests and grasslands), and the ecosystem services they provide, investment in agricultural science and technology provides environmental benefits of US$161.3bn per annum in 2050. Between 2000 and 2050 these benefits amount to US$2,964bn in addition to US$6,343bn in carbon benefits and compare to costs of US$5,68bnResearch and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Analysis of business demography using markov chains : an application to Belgian data

This paper applies the theory of finite Markov chains to analyse the demographic evolution of Belgian enterprises. While other methodologies concentrate on the entry and exit of firms, the Markov approach also analyses migrations between economic sectors. Besides helping to provide a fuller picture of the evolution of the population, Markov chains also enable forecasts of its future composition to be made, as well as the computation of average lifetimes of companies by branch of activity. The method is applied to Belgian data from the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (CBE). To ensure compliance with Eurostat-OECD definitions, only 'active' enterprises, i.e. enterprises with a positive turnover and/or at least one employee, are considered. The forecasting method is applied to simulate the demographic evolution of the CBE population between 2000 and 2006. This simulation seems to match well the observed changes. Taking migrations into account yields better forecasts than if they are not considered. Moreover, several off-diagonal percentages in the transition matrix are sigificantly different from zero. A case study shows that these migrations are changes in main activity and not the consequence of corrections of wrongly classified firms. Next, the average remaining lifetime and the average age of enterprises in a particular branch of activity is computed and analysed. These lifetimes and ages differ considerably across branches. As expected the life-times of public services are longer than average. Shorter lifetimes combined with an increasing number of enterprises is an indication of renewal inside the branch. A low average age is a sign of relatively new branches. Comparing age to total expected lifetime yields an indicator of closeness to extinction. This might be an indicator of the maturity of the branch. The method is more generally applicable in the sense that it can be used to analyse other populations than those from the CBE and other partitions of the populationBusiness demography, Markov chains, Transition matrix