What is the future for the leading US tech giants? Google/Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook are, on the one hand, technology giants able to exert some degree of market power in their main segments and defend against new entrants … Continued
One of the big questions for those interested in policy is how and why significant change happens. We discussed Kingdon’s view of policy windows and policy entrepreneurs and how such critical advocates can help opening windows and taking advantage of … Continued
Growth, equity and/or sustainability: do we need to choose? In TP1, we were discussing some of the challenges of measuring innovation and competitiveness and how the goal of dedicating 3% of GDP to R&D has come to be seen as … Continued
Should innovation policy consider wider social benefits and if so, how should we define what constitutes the public good? The immediate motivation lies in today’s Financial Times headline: Qantas hopes its ultra-long-haul flights will go the distance: routes from Sydney … Continued
Last week, many of you raised a diverse set of technologies that might disrupt including VR, 3D printing, gene drives, drone swarms and meatless meat. The question, of course, is not just how technology can disrupt, but whether firms and institutions … Continued
There are, of course, many reasons to engage in technological foresight including firms seeking competitive intelligence, countries looking to improve their international competitiveness or research agencies looking to invest in the most promising technologies of the future. One of the … Continued
Political debates and the media play important roles not just in driving high-level goals and shaping discourse in different areas but in having an impact on policy design and implementation. While this might help in legitimating policy, public attention can … Continued
One of the dangers of using words like ‘market failure’ and ‘moral hazard’ is that terms can be bandied about in a quite flippant or fuzzy manner. Having started to some research into concerns that negative emissions may lead to ‘moral … Continued
Since Christos just covered patents in TP2 and we touched on it in Lecture 1 of TP1 (and will be briefly returning to the subject next week), I thought this seemed like a worthy topic for discussion, particularly if we … Continued
Transitions can be difficult. The speed, scale and scope of the transformation being proposed for trajectories consistent with 1.5 °C in the recent IPCC Special Report (or even for a 2 °C target) are daunting, almost unimaginable. In large part, … Continued