Technology for Society: Inclusive Innovation (OECD Conference Review)

INTRO

Some time ago, I watched recordings from the OECD conference on “Technology in and for Society: Innovating Well for Inclusive Transitions” (Dec 2021). The discussions covered topics related to correlations between science and emerging technology, multi-actor engagement, global values, setting goals, planning and tools.

With a bit of a delay, I finally found time to highlight some insights that could be useful for some interested readers (disclaimer: this is purely condensed synthesis of points that I found valuable with my own biases and preconceptions):

VISION AND PRIORITIES

• Vision is the basis of every policy. S&T (science and technology) is not an exception - priorities must be defined in a systemic manner (i.e. methodologically and repeatedly). When it comes to social inclusivity, there is no one-fits-all approach - social values differ across communities and evolve at different paces. They can be embedded in technologies but, if used inappropriately, can lead to discrimination.
• Therefore, it is important to have alignment on values rather than use defensive argumentations or debates to prove one's perspective. The government should build a moral compass, conveying why certain rules and regulations are important. Instead of strict control, a principle-based approach for innovation should be used.
• Fragmentation of innovation-based growth is critical to understand. In different countries, citizens can be engaged in different patterns. Across communities, the power of mission-driven policy-making should not be undervalued. European missions, for example, look at large-scale problems using complex mechanisms to bring in opinions and solutions from broad groups of stakeholders. At a more granular level, such NFPs as iGEM focus on problems within the fields of synthetic biology, education and competition, creating an open, collaborative, and cooperative community (primarily made of students) to address particular missions. Either way, focus areas and policies should be defined and adapted in collaboration with various social groups to address issues that are relevant in the selected domains, be it worldwide population or local communities.
• On the other hand, with no questioning, the reality-check must be embedded in the policy-making process. For example, Japan looks at the micro level of what's happening to define macro-scale initiatives. Seeing what is already on the ground is only part of the scope definition - alignment and co-creation are key to successful resource utilisation with larger-scale outcomes. This has been understood for a long time; however, still, effective inter-government engagement can only be hoped for. Public governance is not catered for covering the fast pace of change, which is why policy foresight is needed in order to step ahead of the game. Sadly, some agencies still talk about the few-years old realities.

INCLUSIVITY MECHANISMS

• Innovation requires convergence between different disciplines, practices, industries and social groups. Governments should create (or use already available) participatory mechanisms for engagement.
• An inclusive society is the one where voices of people are heard - where a dialogue with citizens takes place (and its outcomes are valued). Stakes and discussions in the emergence of S&T are different for policymakers and experts than for the public. Therefore, it is important to talk to people before the start of doing research (not once the solution is ready!), funding the risk of sharing the idea first (not the solution) - not to be stolen - to ensure the policymakers are staying in the right directions. For this, trust needs to be built with people. Simplifying the language of government strategies could be the first step towards this inclusivity.
• Involvement of the public might encompass short- to long-term solutions associated with informing workers about what the change is like and what to do. Providing opportunities for (re-)education could be one of them, e.g. reducing working hours or days in the week to provide 2nd and 3rd chances for upskilling. Some people (especially younger generations) are impatient towards what is happening with major global challenges, such as the climate change response, and want to take an active role in addressing them.
• An example of proactive social inclusion can be the UK setting the regime for digital markets competition, whereby the government sought feedback on its proposals for the regime from a very wide audience, including start-ups, charities and small businesses, large and small tech companies, advertisers, publishers, investors, civil society organisations, academics and research and policy organisations, law firms and others.?
• Another example could be Korea’s Science and Technology Future Strategy 2045. The Ministry of Science and ICT organized committees with more than 65 experts to carry out major decisions. At the start, experts in innovation policy and foresight research formed a task force to conduct in-depth research to design the framework of the strategy and derive challenges and policies. Future R&D policy iterations will involve the general public periodically (not only researchers) to check the content and flow of R&D investment, aspiring to invest in S&T based on social consensus.?

POLICY MAKING AND ACTIONING

• At the end of the day, governments need to ensure Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) leads to outputs with deployment (i.e. research is deployed, utilised, commercialised). "Golden rule for involving citizens is in research design (not collecting data)". STI governance tools need to be picked right, combining mechanisms that foster innovation and those that make it more reflexive.
• When it comes to regulation, soft laws are inevitable. Sometimes there shouldn't be regulation because of the high speed of development; instead, there should be interim fillers until something complete is in place. On the other hand, too many soft law programs have no implementation follow-ups, which leads back to the point of the importance of methodological and consistent governance.
• Regulation needs to be evidence-based. Not necessarily more innovation is better - the quality matters. In more progressive states, it becomes clear how technology must deliver for the democracy and good for the people, not vice versa. A balance between human-centric and technology-driven approaches to research should be drawn. Some practical steps include the expansion of innovation space to older age demographies or building real-world laboratories to see how different people can be included.
• Some stakeholders on the implementation side struggle to understand how to apply some enabling technologies (e.g. ML, biotech). Thereby, governments need to show what the potential of the technology could be, stay hand in hand with industry to co-develop relevant solutions and work through associated challenges related to standards (e.g. technical, legal, policy issues) that could hamper acceleration. At last, knowledge gaps can be improved by building the evidence base to make sense of the trends and complexity of the cutting-edge solutions.?
• Whatever initiatives are created, anticipatory (for potential criticalities) and reactive (if unexpected circumstances occur) risk management has to be incorporated into the planning. To address the lack of anticipatory governance, dedicated people in the tech policy field must be able to communicate between the government and stakeholders.?
• In the realm of science interoperability, more strategic cooperations should be targeted. However, clear boundaries should be placed to avoid certain risks that may lead to adversarial implications, including ownership control, affiliation with foreign adversaries on military intelligence proliferation activities, lack of thorough reliable third-party reporting, involvement of persons in malicious cyber activities, coercion or co-optation by a particular government, etc.

Without long conclusions, I would only like to finish with a nice quote from the conference: "Knowing is not enough - we must apply, willing is not enough - we must do".