New Zealand and its competitors in the knowledge economy

In the US, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Finland, Ireland and other countries, the growth of the Internet and other related new technologies have become the catalyst for the creation of ‘knowledge economies’. The new information and communication technologies have created global markets for goods and services. Countries that have encouraged their people through education and life-long learning and by investing heavily in research and development (R&D) are well positioned to take advantage of these new global markets. Along with globalisation has come the death of distance. Thanks to the Internet, New Zealand is no longer remote from the rest of the world.

But New Zealand’s economy is still too dependent on producing commodities for export. While efforts over the last fifteen years to diversify markets have been very successful, we still need to expand our limited range of products. We must take the next important step and transform New Zealand from a pastoral economy into a knowledge-driven economy. For New Zealand, the Internet is the modern equivalent of the freezer ship that revolutionised our economy last century. If New Zealanders do not seize the opportunities provided by the knowledge economy, we will survive only as an amusement park and holiday land for the citizens of more successful developed economies.

This article puts New Zealand into world perspective by assessing its knowledge economy benchmarks against its competitors. It outlines the theoretical background to ‘‘new growth theory'' and delineates the lessons of that theory, especially for New Zealand. It treats the key issues for New Zealand’s emergence as a knowledge economy, including education, the M ori dimension, immigration, research and development, venture capital, export policy and telecommunications regulation.

World knowledge competitiveness index 2002:benchmarking the globes high-performing regions

The World Knowledge Competitiveness Index 2002 is the first composite and relative measure of the knowledge economies of the globe's best performing regions. It represents an integrated and overall benchmark of the knowledge capacity, capability and sustainability of each region and the extent to which this knowledge is translated into economic value and transferred into the wealth of the citizens of each region. This publication has over 50 pages and covers the following sections: The Economics of Knowledge Competitiveness The Rankings - World Knowledge Competitiveness Index Human Capital Components Knowledge Capital Components Regional Economy Outputs Knowledge Sustainability Components Driving Knowledge-Based Growth

Urban Informatics Research and Insights for Libraries, Cultural Industries and Innovation Systems

Over less than a decade, we have witnessed a seismic shift in the way knowledge is produced and exchanged. This is opening up new opportunities for civic and community engagement, entrepreneurial behaviour, sustainability initiatives and creative practices. It also has the potential to create fresh challenges in areas of privacy, cyber-security and misuse of data and personal information. The field of urban informatics focuses on the use and impacts of digital media technology in urban environments. Urban informatics is a dynamic and cross-disciplinary area of inquiry that encapsulates social media, ubiquitous computing, mobile applications and location-based services. Its insights suggest the emergence of a new economic force with the potential for driving innovation, wealth and prosperity through technological advances, digital media and online networks that affect patterns of both social and economic development. Urban informatics explores the intersections between people, place and technology, and their implications for creativity, innovation and engagement. This paper examines how the key learnings from this field can be used to position creative and cultural institutions such as galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) to take advantage of the opportunities presented by these changing social and technological developments. This paper introduces the underlying principles, concepts and research areas of urban informatics, against the backdrop of modern knowledge economies. Both theoretical ideas and empirical examples are covered in this paper. The first part discusses three challenges: a. People, and the challenge of creativity: The paper explores the opportunities and challenges of urban informatics that can lead to the design and development of new tools, methods and applications fostering participation, the democratisation of knowledge, and new creative practices. b. Technology, and the challenge of innovation: The paper examines how urban informatics can be applied to support user-led innovation with a view to promoting entrepreneurial ideas and creative industries. c. Place, and the challenge of engagement: The paper discusses the potential to establish place-based applications of urban informatics, using the example of library spaces designed to deliver community and civic engagement strategies. The discussion of these challenges is illustrated by a review of projects as examples drawn from diverse fields such as urban computing, locative media, community activism, and sustainability initiatives. The second part of the paper introduces an empirically grounded case study that responds to these three challenges: The Edge, the Queensland Government’s Digital Culture Centre which is an initiative of the State Library of Queensland to explore the nexus of technology and culture in an urban environment. The paper not only explores the new role of libraries in the knowledge economy, but also how the application of urban informatics in prototype engagement spaces such as The Edge can provide transferable insights that can inform the design and development of responsive and inclusive new library spaces elsewhere. To set the scene and background, the paper begins by drawing the bigger picture and outlining some key characteristics of the knowledge economy and the role that the creative and cultural industries play in it, grasping new opportunities that can contribute to the prosperity of Australia.

Can I touch this?

Building knowledge economies seems synonymous with re-imaging urban fabrics. Cities producing vibrant public realms are believed to have better success in distinguishing themselves within a highly competitive market. Many governments are heavily investing in cultural enhancements burgeoning distinctive cosmopolitan centers of which public art is emerging as a significant stakeholder. Brisbane’s goal to grow a knowledge-based economy similarly addresses public art. To stimulate engagement with public art Brisbane City Council has delivered an online public art catalogue and assembled three public art trails, with a fourth newly augmented. While many pieces along these trails are obviously public others question the term ‘public’ through an obscured milieu where a ‘look but don’t touch’ policy is subtly implied. This study investigates the interactional relationship between publics and public art, and in doing so, explores the concept of accessibility. This paper recommends that installations of sculpture within an emerging city should be considered in terms of economic output measured through the degree in which the public engages.

The local library across the digital and physical city : opportunities for economic development

This paper considers the role of the public library as a community hub, engagement space, and entrepreneurial incubator in the context of the city, city governance, and local government planning. It considers this role from the perspective of library experts and their future visions for libraries in a networked knowledge economy. Public libraries (often operated by or on behalf of local governments) potentially play a pivotal role for local governments in positioning communities within the global digital network. Fourteen qualitative interviews with library experts informed the study which investigates how the relationship between digital technology and the physical library space can potentially support the community to develop innovative, collaborative environments for transitioning to a digital future. The study found that libraries can capitalise on their position as community hubs for two purposes: first, to build vibrant community networks and forge economic links across urban localities; and second, to cross the digital divide and act as places of innovation and lifelong learning. Libraries provide a specific combination of community and technology spaces and have significant tangible connection points in the digital age. The paper further discusses the potential benefits for libraries in using ICT networks and infrastructure, such as the National Broadband Network in Australia. These networks could facilitate greater use of library assets and community knowledge, which, in turn, could assist knowledge economies and regional prosperity.

Intellectual property law on architectural design in collaborative design communication as digital assets

Digital Economy is one of the crucial elements promoted by the Digital Britain Report June 2009 and its Implementation Plan August 2009 in order to maintain and further the UK’s position as one of the world’s leading digital knowledge economies. Therefore, the application of Digital Technologies is high in the agenda. As pervasive digital technologies become more widely available, it becomes increasingly important to understand the legal implications of digital assets produced via digital technologies in collaborative design communication. Architects and engineers depend on intellectual property law to protect their original works. Copyright protection is automatic once a tangible medium of expression in any form of an innovative material, conforming the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, is created. Although copyright law provides automatic protection to all original architectural plans, the limitation is that it only protects the expression of ideas but not the ideas themselves. The purpose of this research is to explore how effective the UK’s copyright law regime is for protecting the rights and interests of architects and engineers in their works as digital assets. The UK’s copyright law is ripe for modernisation not only to protect the rights of designers but also to further UK’s position in digital economy.

Geography, skills and careers patterns at the boundary of creativity & innovation: digital technology and creative arts graduates in the UK

In the last decades, research on knowledge economies has taken central stage. Within this broader research field, research on the role of digital technologies and the creative industries has become increasingly important for researchers, academics and policy makers with particular focus on their development, supply-chains and models of production. Furthermore, many have recognised that, despite the important role played by digital technologies and innovation in the development of the creative industries, these dynamics are hard to capture and quantify. Digital technologies are embedded in the production and market structures of the creative industries and are also partially distinct and discernible from it. They also seem to play a key role in innovation of access and delivery of creative content. This chapter tries to assess the role played by digital technologies focusing on a key element of their implementation and application: human capital. Using student micro-data collected by the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) in the United Kingdom, we explore the characteristics and location patterns of graduates who entered the creative industries, specifically comparing graduates in the creative arts and graduates from digital technology subjects. We highlight patterns of geographical specialisation but also how different context are able to better integrate creativity and innovation in their workforce. The chapter deals specifically with understanding whether these skills are uniformly embedded across the creative sector or are concentrated in specific sub-sectors of the creative industries. Furthermore, it explores the role that these graduates play in different sub-sector of the creative economy, their economic rewards and their geographical determinants.

Tipping points in online-mediated learning environments

Teacher/Student engagement enriches learning experiences beyond the specifics of communicated information by encouraging connectivity and the fostering of learning communities. This paper is an analysis of student engagement in a postgraduate online-mediated learning environment, and considers how engagement may be an important factor in building communities of learning in conjunction with improved learning outcomes. This paper is informed by the conceptual framework for effective e-learning outlined by Garrison and Anderson (2003) as necessary for higher order knowledge building by students as part of skills development for participation in knowledge economies. Data collected through a pilot study infers that a correlation exists between the development of small groups of significantly contributing students within wider online student cohorts and the learning outcomes of all students within the cohort. The findings indicate that a number of small events have increased student engagement and motivation, and resulted in improved learning outcomes.

Do we challenge students enough? Model Solar vehicle project challenges potential engineers.

A major challenge to Australia and New Zealand is the perceived need to develop "knowledge economies" based on the expertise of university graduates,  especially engineers. However, many countries are finding less students are choosing to study engineering. At the same time, there is increasing concern about increased levels of greenhouse gases leading to global warming with species loss, rising sea levels and desertification being likely outcomes. Numerous competitions have been established aimed at attracting school students into science and engineering careers. Environmental groups have also sponsored educational activities to increase student awareness of alternative energy technologies. One activity which provides both a science and engineering challenge while also raising awareness of alternative energy and more efficient conversion of that energy for transport is the Model Solar Vehicle Challenge (MSVC). The Challenge, which provides a solar powered boat competition for younger students and a car race for the older ones, has involved thousands of Victorian school students since 1990 and students from all Australian states since 1993. Boats race in 2 or 3 lanes guided by an overhead wire in a 10 metre pool, and cars race 100 metres around a figure 8 track. Top boats average over 7 kph and cars reach speeds of 25 kph at the finish line. This paper will discuss the conduct of the Challenge, motivation of participants, the depth of learning which can be achieved and the effectiveness of the Challenge in encouraging students to continue with science subjects through school and to select engineering at university. It will also briefly discuss the lessons that can be learnt from the MSVC and applied to first year university courses.

Educating for futures in marginalized regions: a sociological framework for rethinking and researching aspirations

'Raising aspirations' for education among young people in low socioeconomic regions has become a widespread policy prescription for increasing human capital investment and economic competitiveness in so-called 'knowledge economies'. However, policy tends not to address difficult social, cultural, economic and political conditions for aspiring, based in structural changes associated with globalization. Drawing conceptually on the works of Pierre Bourdieu, Raymond Williams, Arjun Appadurai and authors in the Funds of Knowledge tradition, this article theorizes two logics for aspiring that are recognizable in research with young people and families: a doxic logic, grounded in populist-ideological mediations; and a habituated logic, grounded in biographic-historical legacies and embodied as habitus. A less tangible third 'logic' is also theorized: emergent senses of future potential, grounded in lived cultures, which hold possibility for imagining and pursuing alternative futures. The article offers a sociological framework for understanding aspirations as complex social-cultural phenomena, and for capacitating emergent and hopeful aspirations through school- and community-based research and dialogue. © 2013 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia.

Does the European Union create the foundations of an information society for all? Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 11/2005

In order to increase the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the European Union Member States, the European Commission, on the initiative of Commissioner E. Liikannen, launched in December 1999 a bold programme called “eEurope”. Soon after its creation, the eEurope programme was integrated into the so- called Lisbon agenda for Europe to become the “most advanced knowledge based economy” in the world. We try to assess if the programme is successful in achieving its stated objective of promoting a knowledge based economy through the development of an “information society for all”. First, we conclude that eEurope, due to its origins and its procedures, has intrinsic limits both as regards its scope and effectiveness. Second, we show how Member States have adopted different trajectories towards the “knowledge based society”. To identify these heterogeneous paths of growth, we have selected a set of variables that, combined together, represent the institutional arrangements specific to a country or a group of countries. We found sharp differences between two advanced models that we label, respectively, as Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon. Without asserting the superiority of a model, we propose policy orientations to help Europe overcome those gaps hindering the move towards knowledge economies where information society technologies are widely diffused.

The role of culture in knowledge management : the case of developing economies

This paper explores the role of culture in Knowledge Management (KM) through a spectrum of cultural and institutional perspectives. The case studies cover a wide range of countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America as well as transition economies of the former socialist countries in Eastern Europe. The paper demonstrates how knowledge management processes and practices are influenced by local culture and institutions as well as interaction with the broader international community.

Consent Practices and Biomedical Knowledge Production in Tissue Economies

The use of human tissue sample collections has become an important tool in biomedical research. The collection, use and distribution of human tissue samples, which include blood and diagnostic tissue samples, from which DNA can be extracted and analyzed has also become a major bio-political preoccupation, not only in national contexts, but also at the transnational level. The foundation of medical research rests on the relationship between the doctor and the research subject. This relationship is a social one, in that it is based on informed consent, privacy and autonomy, where research subjects are made aware of what they are getting involved in and are then able to make an informed decision as to whether or not to participate. Within the post-genomic era, however, our understanding of what constitutes informed consent, privacy and autonomy is changing in relation to the needs of researchers, but also as a reflection of policy aspirations. This reflects a change in the power relations between the rights of the individual in relation to the interests of science and society. Using the notions of tissue economies and biovalue (Waldby, 2002) this research explores the changing relationship between sources and users of samples in biomedical research by examining the contexts under which human tissue samples and the information that is extracted from them are acquired, circulated and exchanged in Finland. The research examines how individual rights, particularly informed consent, are being configured in relation to the production of scientific knowledge in tissue economies in Finland from the 1990s to the present. The research examines the production of biovalue through the organization of scientific knowledge production by examining the policy context of knowledge production as well as three case studies (Tampere Research Tissue Bank, Hereditary Non-polyposis Colorectal Cancer and the Finnish Genome Information Center) in which tissues are acquired, circulated and exchanged in Finland. The research shows how interpretations of informed consent have become divergent and the elements and processes that have contributed to these differences. This inquiry shows how the relationship between the interests of individuals is re-configured in relation to the interests of science and society. It indicates how the boundary between interpretations of informed consent, on the one hand, and social and scientific interests, on the other, are being re-drawn and that this process is underscored, in part, by the economic, commercial and preventive potential that research using tissue samples are believed to produce. This can be said to fundamentally challenge the western notion that the rights of the individual are absolute and inalienable within biomedical legislation.

Mining Money: the generative capacities of scientific and legal knowledge practices in the making of resource economies

In 1997 a scandal associated with Bre-X, a junior mining firm, and its prospecting activities in Indonesia, exposed to public scrutiny the ways in which mineral exploration firms acquire, assess and report on scientific claims about the natural environment. At stake here was not just how investors understood the provisional nature of scientific knowledge, but also evidence of fraud. Contemporaneous mining scandals not only included the salting of cores, but also unreliable proprietary sample preparation and assay methods, mis-representations of visual field estimates as drilling results and ‘overly optimistic’ geological reports. This paper reports on initiatives taken in the wake of these scandals and prompted by the Mining Standards Task Force (TSE/OSC 1999). For regulators, mandated to increase investor confidence in Canada’s leading role within the global mining industry, efforts focused first and foremost upon identifying and removing sources of error and wilfulness within the production and circulation of scientific knowledge claims. A common goal cross-cutting these initiatives was ‘a faithful representation of nature’ (Daston and Galison 2010), however, as the paper argues, this was manifest in an assemblage of practices governed by distinct and rival regulative visions of science and the making of markets in claims about ‘nature’. These ‘practices of fidelity’, it is argued, can be consequential in shaping the spatial and temporal dynamics of the marketization of nature.