Organising the political coordination of knowledge and innovation policies

This special issue of Science and Public Policy takes up the recently discussed problem of political coordination in the ‘third phase of innovation'. The introduction prepares the analytical ground for the four case studies that follow. It develops the image of a ‘knowledge space' consisting of the four ‘core' areas of innovation policy — higher education, professional education, basic research and technological research — and uses insights from administrative science and a number of science and policy studies that discuss the need for coordination in policy-making in knowledge and innovation systems. Different types of coordination are distinguished as well as various institutional levels within the political system that play a role in the overall capacity of improving political coordination. A number of problems and expectations are raised which are the starting point of reflections in the ensuing case studie

Why do Scientists Migrate? A Diffusion Model

This article improves our understanding of the reasons underlying the intellectual migration of scientists from existing cognitive domains to nascent scientific fields. To that purpose we present, first, a number of findings from the sociology of science that give different insights about scientific migration. We then attempt to bring some of these insights together under the conceptual roof of an actor-based approach linking expected utility and diffusion theory. Intellectual migration is seen as the choice of scientists who decide under uncertainty and on the base of estimations about probabilities, costs, and benefits of the migration. The resulting choice model can be used as a heuristic base for further exploration of the subjec

Constitutional Change in Switzerland

The article presents a case of successful constitutional change in Switzerland, the "re-assignment of responsibilities between the federal government and the cantons and the new fiscal equalization scheme,” which was adopted in 2004 by referendum. By starting from the general assumption that ways and means are needed to strengthen general interests at the expense of distributive interests in constitutional discussions, the article endeavors to identify favorable conditions for successful constitutional change. By using insights from "constitutional political economy” and "actor-centered institutionalism,” four such conditions are revealed: the procedural separation of problem solving and bargaining interaction modes; the importance of ideational factors like "frames,” "causal theories,” and focal points; active agenda-crafting; and the structuring of constitutional debates by earlier decisions. In addition, this article highlights that other conditions, more directly linked to interest and interest struggle, can help to mitigate the intensity of distributive conflicts and are therefore indirectly conducive to a problem-solving interaction orientation of actor

Lessons on the political coordination of knowledge and innovation policies

The article takes up the main questions developed in the introduction and endeavours to give a synthetic account of the findings in the various country studies in this special issue of SPP. In a nutshell, one can see an impressive account of reform activities concerning the improvement of the political coordination of knowledge and innovation policies. It turns out that internal coordination by way of a superministry might not be the optimal solution for coordination problems. External coordination under the influence of ‘moral contracts' at the top-level of decision-making on the ministerial level and newly designed and delegated coordinating bodies at the agency level might be better ways to proceed. Policy-makers have to pay attention though to keep the balance between the pressing need for better political coordination and the need for an autonomous development of basic research, higher education, professional education, and technological applicatio

Lasting tensions in research policy-making — a delegation problem

A basic paradox in funding policy is that policy-makers want to guarantee maximum welfare benefits without violating the independence of scientists and their organisations. This article contends that this problem can be adequately conceptualised in terms of delegation and principal-agent theory. In the past, blind delegation and incentives were used to resolve the tension: more recently, efforts have been in quite a different direction. The ‘steady state' succeeds in realising more society-oriented research but fails to reduce the tensions. ‘Delegation by contract' and ‘delegation to networks' attack the estimation of costs by scientists linked to the efforts in politically or user-inspired research and can thus reduce the likelihood of moral hazard by scientists. They are ‘opening up' the scientific system to user systems by changing the functioning of the basic structures of science whilst embodying two very different solutions. ‘Delegation by contract' maintains a strong belief in the rationalisation of funding policy and in political guidance, while ‘delegation to networks' makes the state a ‘facilitator' helping scientists and their institutions to self-organise networks of co-operation with user system

Global Demand for Environmental Goods and Services on the Rise: Good Growth Opportunities for German Suppliers

According to conservative calculations, over $580 billion was spent worldwide on environmental goods and services and renewable energy technologies1 in 2004. So-called "green spending" is set for strong growth in the future on account of the long-term expansion of the global economy and mounting environmental challenges. Significant opportunities for growth and employment in Germany are also offered by forecasted trends in the market for green technologies. DIW Berlin has developed a method to quantify future global demand for environmental goods and services based on alternative economic scenarios. The method places a key focus on the international trade of environmental goods and services. Our calculations predict that the effective annual demand for environmental goods and services in Germany will increase from$75 billion in 2004 to between $106 and 171 billion by 2020 (at 2004 prices and exchange rates).The high growth in German exports is responsible in particular for this trend. Nevertheless, sensitivity calculations indicate that demand could also grow at a much slower rate through 2020 under unfavorable economic conditions.Environmental Goods and Services Sector, World Trade, Scenarios

Economic and financial crises can change the dynamics of federal relationships

Economic recession and soaring deficits in the wake of the recent fiscal and economic crisis do not only ask for intelligent fiscal policies but need also coordinated efforts in federal states in order to forego contradictory and inefficient fiscal reactions to the crisis. Dietmar Braun and Philipp Trein have investigated eleven federations to discover what extent the crisis has contributed to such confrontation and changes in federal relations

The political coordination of knowledge and innovation policies in Switzerland

The article highlights the main problems Switzerland faces in engaging in a more encompassing knowledge and innovation policy, an objective that is widely shared by the political elites. Two ‘coordination gaps' are highlighted in the context of Switzerland: the ‘federal divide' that structures political governance in the knowledge space in manifold ways and the ‘utilitarian divide' that is institutionalised within the federal administration. It is demonstrated that Swiss policy-makers have taken great pains to overcome the obstacles in the wake of the federal divide with some success, but have failed to do so with regard to the utilitarian divide. The lack of guiding and reflexive capacities at the cabinet level will make it difficult to overcome this divide in the future, though planned reforms at the agency level may help to build some bridges between at least basic and technological researc

Principal-agent theory and research policy: An introduction

The rational choice perspective is prominent in many sociological, economic and political science literature but has been undervalued until now in the field of science studies. This special issue attempts to revalorise this perspective by introducing the principal-agent theory with relation to research policy-making. The introduction presents the basic features of the model of principal-agent and reviews the theoretical development and applications in research policy. It summarises the main findings of the articles in this issue and concludes that the studies in the framework of principal-agent demonstrate the willingness of combining theoretical rigour and ‘requisite variety' by applying the theory to a large number of different fields linked to research policy-makin