Google Reader. Wikipedia. Commons. Misc.ience. How innovative would you say New Zealand is, comparatively? Well, we have an answer, according to the Global Innovation Index 2013 – produced (since 2007) by economists from Cornell University, INSEAD and WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization. This year, the report looks at 142 countries from Zimbabwe to Switzerland. Together, these countries represent almost 95% of the world’s population, and over 98% of its GDP. From Scientific American: This year’s big-picture findings: R&D spending has rebounded around the world after suffering in the wake of the global financial crisis.
The same high-income usual suspects—the wealthiest European countries in particular—dominate the top of the list. The BRIC nations—Brazil, the Russian Federation, India and China—all slipped in this year’s rankings. The diagram below shows how each of the 142 countries ranks according to GDP per capita and the Global Innovation Index score. But that’s not the full story. Myself? Just So Science. With today’s announcement of the first 3 National Science Challenges (NSC’s) and the opening of their request for proposals*, I’m forced to reflect again on the Science and Society challenge. I’m assured that it’s moving forward behind the scenes (and I actually believe it is!) But I’m going to take this opportunity to prompt a little discussion with the science community about what we might like it to look like and, specifically, who might be some excellent thought and practice leaders to ensure it actually achieves what the Panel intended rather than to simply meet the milestones that will be set out for it (as so many projects end up doing – both public and private).
Who would you pick to keep the science and society challenge on course? – Image from Wikimedia Commons First off: what aspects of Science and Society is the challenge likely to focus on? Secondly comes the big question who might we grab on to lead these sorts of developments? So that just leaves modern STEM education**.