JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY
Year:2013 | Volume:5 | Issue:4|Papers Count:6

Public Policies usually develop and implement as a resolution for a Public Problem. Literature studies show that an understanding of Causal relations and Loops is a prerequisite for analysis of Public Policies. This concern has been responsed with System Dynamics by many Researchers across the world. System Dynamics is a useful method for public policy analysis with a capability for considering their Complex causal relations. To date, such analyses have not been applied due to the lack of Information, Difficulties in measurement of qualitative relations and so on.This Article is going to design a model for Analyzing Higher Education Policies in the fifth development plan using System Dynamics. The Research is an Explanatory Modeling Based on Expert Participation. The Results show that considering Time Delayes, Reenforcing and Balancing Loops is influencing to the effectiveness of Higher Education Policies: The lack of respection to time delayes in goal-seeking (balancing) loops will result in oscilation. So monitoring and appraising policies will be very difficult due to the difficulties in identification of changes in behavior of target groups after a policy implementation and cause and effect with different time scopes. Also, application of planning tools and more coordination between related organizations are essential for decreasing these delayes.Accordingly, behavior pattern of critical variables, time delayes and causal loops have been Identified on which some propositions have been presented for improvement of Higher Education Policies in the fifth development plan.

The main objective of this research is providing a model for the formation of emerging Iranian Nanotechnology sector using the functional approach of Technological Innovation System (TIS) concept. Both qualitative and quantitative research has been used in this paper. First based on analysis of policy documents, expert opinions and interviews with officials the historical development of formation of functions in Nanotechnology sector has been charted by historical data mapping method. Second, based on the results of questionnaire-based survey (from activists in the sector) and using factor analysis method, functions and activities of conceptual model were confirmed and then using structural equation modeling, the causal relationships between different functions were mapped. Results of this research showing that government has a key role through influencing the functions such as guidance of research and innovation, supply and allocation of resources and institution building and legalization, then these drivers could be collectively referred as the ‘motor of Government's pressure and support’.

The current investigates the debate of OR as a science or technology. Operations Research is a set of methods (methodologies) with the aim of improving decision making in organizations and hence is of great importance in both academic and practical fields in the entire world. The main question of the paper is that why such a debate is important? Does it make any difference realizing OR as science or technology in its aim of improving decision making in organizations? If it makes any difference, what it will be? This paper first reviews the evidence of the parties in conflict and then analyses the importance of considering or as a science/technology and its implications in the future of the discipline. Finally some recommendation is presented for the policy makers of the science and technology in Iran.

Innovation systems literature refuses similar policies to the innovation-based development across different types of regions; no one size fits all. Furthermore, the theoretical literature, specially the broad approach to innovation systems has largely advocated the impact of social factors such as trust and believes on innovation behavior of regions.Iran is a vast country, includes a great diversity of ethnicity and culture, which make it a proper case to study the impact of social factors on regional innovation behavior. Considering some social factors, such as trust and collectivism; and some social actions, such as interactive learning, we provide a regional innovation behavior typology in this paper. We study similarity and difference in regional socio-economical properties of 28 provinces of Iran in two 4-years periods and compare their innovation performance. The typology forms the basis for region-specific innovation policies.

In recent decades a phenomenon named as Knowledge-Based Economy has been centralized by statesmen, economic activists and the academics who are concerned with the progressive studies. This is based upon a deep believe on the importance of knowledge in making an economic value.The essay will have an institutional view toward economy which investigates the capacities of Islam in the basic functions of knowledge-based economy (especially in informal and cultural institutes). The article has a comparative, analytical and adhocracy approach.The research concludes that the Islamic economy is a knowledge-friendly economy and it has a lot of encouragements and prescriptions on knowledge and also offers nice guards against cultural difficulties which concerns knowledge management and knowledge-based economy. Fortunately with reliance on Islam, we can have a step forward and claim that the encouragement on questioning, deliberation and criticism produced by Islam could be effective on the transition from the data-based community to the knowledge-based community which could be also named as wisdom-based. So, using the institutional capacities of Islam in having knowledge-based economy is important (such as or more than banking without-usury) and could be value-making in reality.

This article analyzes the transformation of sectoral innovation systems in upstream petroleum industry and its drivers. The evidence collected shows that this sector has experienced three distinctive phases since the early 1970s over which both upstream industry architecture and innovation systems have changed in configuration and performance. This study shows that the major driver behind transition from the first to the second period was collapse of oil prices. However, the major factor behind transition from the second to the third period was emergence of ‘qualitatively’ different demand for complex upstream projects in harsh and less accessible environments which drove innovation opportunities and pushed emergence of integrated service companies. In contrast to the conventional industry life cycle model, this study shows that a mature and established industry can transform to a high-tech sector, when major agents in the sector actively participate in the innovation system to meet the new technical requirements. It also shows transformation of sectoral innovation systems can be analyzed in terms of interaction between changes in architectural changes and innovation dynamics.