JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY
Year:2008 | Volume:1 | Issue:3|Papers Count:8

In the recent years, new technology-based firms (NTBFs) have been frequently regarded by researchers and policy-makers, as important drivers of fast economic growth. In several countries, NTBFs have exhibited high rates of growth in employment, sales, exports and assets. The quality of jobs provided in NTBFs is also thought to be significantly better than of those in traditional activities. Another important role of NTBFs is technology diffusion within innovation networks. Their major contribution to technological development is through their role in the transfer of technologies from research institutes to industry.Because of the importance of these firms and for other reasons, including market failure, these firms need government support.In this research, we first focus on identifying suitable policy instruments for supporting NTBFs. Then, we prioritize policy instruments using a fuzzy MCDM model based on the opinions of different groups of experts. Finally we discuss policy issues in implementing these instruments.

In this paper, nanotechnology related patents published during the period 2001 – 2007 were investigated using website of QPAT in order to evaluation the innovation strength and nanotechnology market attractiveness of different countries. At first step, the share of nanotechnology related patents of each country in different patent offices (USPTO, EPO) and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) was statistically searched and analyzed. Then, the countries were ranked according to the number of published patents. The relation between nano-science generation and nano-innovation strength was also investigated and situation of the countries in both of indicators was studied. According to the results, high scientific potential is not lonely sufficient for promotion of nanotechnology creation but it is imperative to develop the infrastructures of intellectual properties in this field. At second step, number of registered patents in each patent office available by QPAT website was analyzed as an indicator of technology strength and interior market attractiveness and finally relation between innovation strength and market attractiveness was studied.

Our main question in this essay is “Why policy tools and techniques are becoming so popular in Iran?”. Our focus is on the rationales that lead policy makers and policy analysts to use such tools and techniques. We argue that this phenomenon can be analyzed as a special case of policy transfer. Based on a survey, we found that in Iran, the “scientific justification” could be assumed the main motive of policy makers and policy analysts to use such tools. While some  actors try to diffuse these tools and techniques as their “lucrative  business” and this goes hand in hand with lack of in-depth knowledge of  policy makers about these tools which in turn facilitates the process of import and distribution of modern policy tools and techniques in the country.

Nowadays, establishment of science parks is a basic strategy for promotion of regional businesses and establishing innovative regions. Policy makers often utilize theories of innovative regions and countries on local points of strength and weaknesses. Science parks are part of national/regional innovation systems, so it seems rational to expect that the development policies for such parks should have a consistency with the development policy of the host regions. The assumption in this paper is that regional innovation policies which suitable for less-innovative regions serveay good guides for the development of science parks of Iran.In this paper, literature on innovation barriers and various policies suggested for less-innovative regions are studied, with the aim of extending them to science parks. Using innovation-related data, Iran provinces are clustered. Three groups of clusters are identified: fragmented metropolitan regions (including 2 provinces), locked-in industrial regions (including 8 provinces) and peripheral regions (including 18 provinces). Finally, for each of them, some science park development policies are suggested.

The theoretical and empirical literature in the field of Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Studies (STIP) contains a variety of discrete concepts, frameworks and techniques for policy making. However, an integrative framework is lacking that can guide practitioners as to how to use the research findings in a real context. This paper tries to fill the gap through probing the practical problem of formulating a national science, technology and innovation strategy using an inter-disciplinary (integrative) research method.The proposed conceptual framework is based on positioning the existing concepts, frameworks and techniques in a change management program. Application of this integrative framework is investigated for developing such a national strategy in Iran and future research opportunities in science, technology and innovation policy are suggested.

This research concentrates on soft technology as a hidden side of management of technology. Because of the importance of soft technology, firstly we provide some definitions of soft technology and focus attention on differences between soft and hard technologies. Also we introduce managerial systems as a soft process technology and then their analyze transfer of them, one of the most important challenges in the industrial development in our country. In this paper, we recognize 40 differentiations between soft and hard technology. After categorizing them in to 4 group we measure importance of these distinctions in identifying and selecting process of SPR (The most important soft technology transferred to Irankhodro from Renault).

Academic promotion is a major mechanism of quality maintenance and enhancement of higher education and research activities. Considering the current revision process of the national academic promotion procedures of faculty members at universities and research centers in Iran, a comparative investigation of promotion practices in the academic institutions of other countries may  contribute to more profoundly informed perspectives in the process of revising these procedures. The present study investigates the promotion criteria of the newly proposed procedures in comparison with the academic promotion criteria of 35 universities of Turkey, South Africa, Ireland, Lebanon, New Zealand, Canada, US, UK and Australia. The criteria were extracted from documents available on the official websites of the universities under investigation. They were grouped into three categories of criteria concerning education, research and services. The three sets of criteria were then compared with their corresponding categories in the newly proposed national academic promotion procedures. On the basis of these comparisons, suggestions are provided to policy makers with the aim of contributing to the enrichment of the promotion criteria and the procedures under development.