Calm Technology

“New Challenges for Sectoral Systems of Innovation in Europe” was presented at DRUID Summer Conference in 2002. It summarises the main results of the ESSY project. This project was funded under FP4 with aims:
1. to build a research methodology which focuses on sectoral systems,
2. to understand the functioning and evolution of six major sectoral systems in Europe,
3. to study the determinants of the European performance in these six sectors,
4. to develop new policy options and implications on this basis.
Franco Malerba claims that sectoral systems of innovation framework is a useful tool in various respects:

1. Descriptive analysis of differences and similarities in the structure, organisation, and boundaries of sectors;
2. Understanding differences and similarities in dynamics and transformation of sectors;
3. Identification of factors affecting innovation, commercial performance and international competitiveness of firms and countries in the different sectors;
4. Development of new public policy indications.

The sectoral system of innovation is composed of three main building blocks:

1. Knowledge and technological domain. Every sector is characterised by a specific knowledge base, technological structure and inputs. Here, the issue of the technological boundary is very important. These boundaries are usually not fixed and many links and complementarities exist between different technologies.
2. Actors and networks. Every sector is composed of heterogeneous actors, groups, organizations and individuals. Firms, universities, government agencies, research institutes, industrial association, entrepreneurs, consumers, financial institutions, trade unions are all contributed directly or indirectly to the evolution of the sector. In addition, these agents are related to each other through forma and informal networks. Malerba argues that they “are connected in various ways through market and non-market relationships”.
3. Institutions. Interactions between agents are shaped by “institutions. which include norms, routines, common habits, laws, standards and so on”. These institutions can be formal (i.e. specific regulations, intellectual property rights) and informal (i.e. conventions).

Malerba stresses also the importance of the geographical boundaries suggesting that there is not an appropriate one in the study of sectoral systems of innovation.

This preliminary introduction to sectoral systems of innovation framework is then used to describe the results of the ESSY project in the analysis of five sectors: biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, telecom equipment and services, chemicals, software, and machine tools.

At this stage, I do not discuss the second part of the article, which I will address later. The study on telecom and software can be very relevant because ubiquitous computing is related with this two sectors. Now, I just want to discuss one, the definition of technological boundary.
From my understanding, it is very difficult to define which technologies are included in the ubiquitous computing family and which not. Consequently defining precise boundaries seems difficult. If it is so, how can I define the technological boundaries of my research? A deep understanding of ubiquitous computing technologies and applications can help me select a group of related technologies and study them as a part of the ubiquitous computing world. Then, If I use this argument, is sectoral system of innovation framework still applicable? Is technological system of innovation more appropriate for this approach? However, I have to say that recently Bo Carlsson, the technological system of innovation framework guru, seems to prefer the term sectoral system to technological system (see Carlsson, B. et al. 2005. Analyzing the Dynamics and Functionality of Sectoral Innovation Systems – A Manual. DRUID Summer Conference 2005).

The Peer to Patent Project was announced by the US Patent and Trademark Office last August. One-year pilot project will be launched at the beginning of 2007. The pilot will analyse the impact of “open, community reveiw of patent applications”. Professor Beth Simone Noveck, Director of the Institute for Information Law & Policy at New York Law School, explains the project with the following words: “The Community Patent Review pilot project will allow experts from around the globe to submit relevant information known as prior art and take advantage of collaborative web-based technologies to inform decision-making. In short, reviewers submit prior art and commnet on its relevance to specific parts of the published application. Peer reviewers will rank these submissions so that patent examiners can review the prior art deemed most relevant by the community”. The graph below shows the model of the engagement between reviewers and patents examiners.

The Community Patent Review allows the Patent Office to engage with a specific community of innovation experts using social networking tools. The engaging population is very specific and prepared to give a valuable contribution to the Patent Office. Consequently, this is a very particular case of electronic engagement in science, but it will be very interesting to see how the model will work and which results will produce.

The first post on this blog was about public engagement and the use of Web 2.0 platforms to connect public organizations and citizens. Given that I am not an expert, but an user of tools such as blogs, I would like to make some considerations on these topics.

First of all, I would like to identify the actors involved in an engagement process. The governmental (national, regional, local) bodies try to interact with citizens. The idea is to involve citizens in engaging and participating to the decision making process. This can happen through communication from the bodies to the citizens. Citizens can be consulted in relation to particular decisions. Citizens can monitor government bodies’ activities and also question authorities using petition or public assemblies. All these do not look new. But Web 2.0 solutions can empower all these activities. There are several examples of electronic public engagement (See http://dowire.org/wiki/Case_Study_List for a list of e-democracy case study; Coleman S., Norris, Donald, S. 2005. A New Agenda for e-Democracy. Oxford Internet Institute). Browsing the web, we can also see that social networking software is encouraging new forms of civic activism. People are confident enough to develop solutions able to account politicians and policies. Mysociety.org and Sunlight Foundation are examples of this new activism. On the other side of the barricade, goverments, public authorities, policy makers are slowly developing solutions, which are able to fit a visible desire of digital engagement. Some exceptional cases are the first press conference on Second Life by the French socialist candidate to the Presidential election, Segolane Royale; and the open of the Swedish Embassy on Second Life.

Now let’s complicate the scenario. We do not want to discuss the engagement between governments and citizens, but between research organizations such Research Councils in the UK and citizens. Research Councils can certainly communicate with citizens, but can Research Councils consultate citizens about their decision making process? Are citizens prepared enough to be involved in decisions related to scientific and technological development? It seems to me that the consultation process requires a learning phase in which citizens become aware of the scientific issue, which needed to be discussed. Once this process is completed, all the e-democracy tools can be used in this context. The Wellcome Trust – Sanger Institute seems to move towards this direction. The Your Genome initiative is an on-line resource tool, which aims to develop awareness and knowledge on genomes and genomic science. Finally, an example of electronic public engagement in science is the The Peer to Patent Project developed by the US Patent and Trademark Office. I will discuss it in the next post.

 This is not really a post. Just to describe the strucuture of the blog. It is divided in six main categories:

• Research diary: thughts and ideas on the entire research.
• Ubiquitous Computing: literature review and ideas on ubiquitous computing.
• Sectoral Systems of innovation: literature review on this framework.
• Social Shaping/Construction of Technology: literature review on this framework.
• Analysis of emerging technologies: review of methods and frameworks to analyse and forecast emerging technologies (i.e. TechMining by Alan Porter).
• Policies on emerging technologies: analysis of policies and strategies on emerging technologies with particular attention to ICT in Europe.

Other categories can be added.

The Oxford Concise says that ubiquity means “being everywhere or in an indefinite number of places at the same time”. If we add to this definition the word computing, we can think of digital devices, able to process and delivery information, located in different locations and all active at the same time. These devices communicate to each other, but also interellate with humans, who can move in different locations and being able to interact with such devices indipendently from time and space. These scenario was firstly described by Mark Weiser in his seminal paper, The Computer for the 21st Century (Weiser, M. 1991. The Computer for the 21st Century. Scientific American, 265(3), 94-104). He captured the scenario described above in the following way: “The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it”. Weiser’s paper is broadly recognized as the starting point of the research in ubiquitous computing (Satyanarayanan, M. 2001. Pervasive Computing: Vision and Challenges. IEEE Personal Communications, August 2001, 10-17) . The importance of Weiser’s article for research in ubiquitous computing is also confirmed by some bibliometrics data such as the following: “almost one quarter of all the papers published in the Ubicomp conference between 2001 and 2005 cite Weiser’s foundamental articles” (Bell, G., Dourish, P. 2006. Yesterday’s tomorrows: notes on ubiquitous computing’s dominant vision. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing).

The next step is to analyse Weiser’s vision, which seems to be a “technological paradigm” in unbiquitous computing. It will be also important to understand if this paradigm is obsolete and what is ubiquitous computing today, 25 years from Weiser’s article.

Regarding literature review on innovation literature, I am moving on two directions. The first one is related to technological/sectoral system of innovation approach with articles by Bo Carlsson, Franco Malerba, CESPRI researchers, and SPRU researchers. I have found an interesting book by Charles Edquist, “The Internet and Mobile Telecommunications System of Innovation: Developments in Equipment, Access and Content”. The second path is related to the studies on analysis of emerging technologies. The journal “Technology Forecasting and Social Change” is a great source. TechMining approach by Alan Porter is attracting me.

I have finished to read an entire issue of IBM Systems Journal (Vol 38, No 4, 1999) on ubiquitous and pervasive computing. The impression is that we are not speaking about a specific technology, but different applications and solutions built using different technologies. In fact, the issue discusses of personal area networks, wearable computing, devices controlling, social networking tools, mobile networks and so on. It seems to be in Mark Weiser’s world: “The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it” (In “The Computer for the 21st Century”, September 1991). Consequently, the question is: which level of analysis? Product level? Applicatios level? Technological component level? If I want to use sectoral system of innovation approach, the choice of the level of analysis is the crucial point of all the research (See Carlsson B. et al. 2005. Analyzing the Dynamics and Functionality of Sectoral Innovation Systems – A Manual).

This argument has been confirmed by George Roussos’ email: “Basically pervasive computing is not one technology from a business perspective, so I doubt it if you can group everything under one title. Perhaps it would be better if you looked at particular enablers. You need to pin it down to more managable components".

George Roussos is Senior Lecturer of Ubiquitous and Mobile Computing at Birkbeck College.

The desired and uncertain PhD is on. There are some critical things, which need to be take into account, but I am there and I am researching about innovation system in the pervasive and ubiquitous computing in Europe.

I have been lazy and I did not apply for any scholarship or sponsorship. Maybe it is not just lazyness, but also the idea to work during the PhD. In fact, the big challenge is working and researching. Only the time is able to say if PhD and jobs can cohabit. A part from this, I have planned the work for the next two months. I will do literature review in three areas of research:

• Frameworks and approaches in analysing innovation in emerging technologies. I think about sectoral systems of innovation, social shaping/construction of technology and other approaches from marketing studies, of which I am not really aware at the moment.
• Analysis of technologies and applications in the area of ubiquitous and pervasive computing. I have sent an e-mail to George Roussous, Senior Lecture in Ubiquitous Computing at Birkbeck College, for an help on this.
• Analysis of policies and strategies in the area of emerging technologies, particularly information and communication technologies, at EU level. However, I think that I should study also some other cases such as USA and Japan.

This literature review should help me in better defining my research. My hope is to reduce the boarders of the topic and able to define the level of analysis of my work.