MIT and Harvard Leaders Make Policy Recommendations for the Next US President

Technology Review is running an article today
comprised of three letters to the next US president, suggesting policy
initiatives that they think are needed to address future challenges.

First up is Ernest J. Moniz, Director of The MIT Energy Initiative,
who argues for plans to develop a "portfolio of proven low-carbon
technologies". His specific proposals include:

Timo Hannay on Web 2.0 and science

At a recent conference on Science in the 21st Century, I was lucky to hear Nature.com's publishing director Timo Hannay talk about Web 2.0 and the future of science. He recently gave a talk at the British Library with the provocative title "Scientific Researchers and Web 2.0: Social Not Working?" The whole piece is worth reading-- it's a good overview of Web 2.0 tools and their uses in science right now-- but he concludes on a somewhat pessimistic note:

I'm optimistic about the potential of the web to greatly improve the productivity – and joy – of doing science. I also think it can help to break down barriers between disciplines, and between science and the rest of society. That's why I've devoted my recent professional life to the pursuit of turning this into a reality.

But I'm less optimistic about the inevitability of this potential being fully realised, at least in anything less than a generational timescale. For every scientist who sees it as self-evident that they should be using these tools, or promoting open information-sharing, there are dozens who just don't see the point. For every publisher or librarian who 'gets it' there are many who don't – at least not fully and not yet.

Changing behaviours and expectations is difficult at the of best times – it is too easy to overlook the hundreds of companies that fail for every one, like Facebook or Google, that changes the landscape. In a conservative establishment like science, it's harder still. In some ways science – as an continual, collaborative, global endeavour – is the ultimate wiki. But this analogy misleads people into assuming that adoption of new tools and approaches by scientists is a foregone conclusion. It's not.

How to Attract US R&D Outsourcing

A recent article in Research Policy landed on my desk today, titled "The Maturation of Global Corporate R&D: Evidence From the Activity of U.S. Foreign Subsidiaries", by Deepak Hegde and Diana Hicks.

This review turned a lot of my assumptions about the globalization of R&D, and how poorly the current debate about offshoring of R&D in the US is based on fact.

New Program Announcement: Science in Place

The global map of science and technology innovation is changing quickly. But it’s not just macroeconomics and demographics that is driving this tectonic shift in how scientific collaboration is organized globally, regionally, in cities and within buildings. Everywhere we turn, new structures are challenging the way research organizations create and apply new knowledge, and where they do it.

Mercosur Announces Science, Technology and Innovation Plan

From SciDev.Net today, we learn that "the presidents of the Mercosur member countries have signed a five-year plan for science, technology and innovation, aiming to add value to regional production. Not many details yet, but with Brazil's rapid advances in aviation manufacturing and biofuel, and Argentina's burgeoning expat fashionability, there are some interesting possible futures for attracting R&D money and talent to the region.

[Spanish full text only]
http://www.scidev.net/es/news/presidentes-del-mercosur-firman-plan-de-cy...

iPhone and citizen science

Alexis Madrigal throws a link to the X2 Project in his post on the addition of GPS in the iPhone:

With Steve Jobs' announcement that the iPhone 3G will have geolocation built-in, plenty of people are excited about finding good restaurants near them or worried about the privacy implications....

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