Agenda for local, national, and international private sectors (for-profit entities)

1. Participate in national efforts to identify S&T goals and priorities

The private sector in developing nations should be an active participant in governmental efforts to plan the development of national capabilities in science and technology.

2. Support research and development efforts in developing nations that address local and global needs

The international private sector should participate in incentive programs for creating in-house corporate research units and hiring scientific talent. Such incentives should essentially be spurs that encourage, not replace, the private sector's own profit-motivated desire to take these steps. For example, tax rebates and national recognition for industries involved in building their human-resources capacity - say, through internship programs and contractual research - could pay sizeable dividends to the private and public sectors alike.
The international private sector should help finance and participate in centers of excellence - research programs, within a university, a research institute, or operating independently, typically located in one geographical location, and deemed by merit review to be of the highest international quality in personnel, infrastructure, and research output - whether of local, national, regional, or international status.
The international private sector should financially support the creation of new virtual networks of excellence (VNE) - research programs jointly sponsored and conducted by research institutes in different geographical locations, with research personnel communicating and collaborating primarily via new technologies such as the internet and the World Wide Web, deemed by merit review to be of the highest international quality in personnel, infrastructure, and research output - nationally, regionally, and globally.
The multinational private sector should actively encourage extensions of the grace period under the Trade - Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to 2016 for most developing nations.
S&T capacity building in the developing nations would be helped by corporate segmentation of the global marketplace, distinguishing between technologically advanced and poorer, technologically deprived nations. These image - improving but also commercially rewarding actions could increase the countries' ability to develop their own S&T programs, keep the local prices of products from rising beyond the reach of most of the population, and permit the development of locally produced versions.
Using the pharmaceutical industry as an example, the following recommendations apply to the multinational private sector based in S&T-advanced countries:

Patent fees should be waived on the few existing patented tropical-disease drugs, and in some cases make them available for free.
Automatic licensing should be allowed for S&T-proficient as well as S&T-developing nations to produce generic drugs (as long as they honor a ban on exportation of the generics to the markets of the high-income countries).
Real partnerships should be created with developing nations' private sectors.
Extensions of the grace period under TRIPS to 2016 should be encouraged for most developing nations.
Special partnerships should be created for the advanced developing nations that include customized licensing, and experimentation with a few drugs at differential pricing.
Appropriate incentive policies in industrialized nations should be supported to promote technology transfer - for instance, tax breaks for companies that license technology to developing nations.

The private sector should support the option of national sectoral funding for research and development that significantly enhances science and technology capacity.

3. Participate in government-university-industry partnerships for strengthening S&T capacity

Corporations should join with governments, universities, and research institutes to experiment with partnerships and consortia for addressing research areas of potential local benefit.

4. Help developing nations to upgrade their educational institutions and programs

The private sector should support and sponsor programs for providing high-quality training for S&T teachers.
The private sector should support government awards of special fellowships or grants, designed to provide adequate research support and income supplements, to outstanding young scientists who work in developing nations for a period of time. Such special treatment may require local institutional flexibility, but it would be amply justified by the fundamental benefit of stimulating and retaining the local talent. For their part, governments of developing nations should provide re-entry grants to encourage young scientists trained in the industrialized world to return home.

5. Help provide information on S&T resources and issues to the public

The private sector should support and provide necessary information to the government advisory and assessment programs on health and safety issues regarding products and services. Each nation involved in the development, production, or use of new technologies, such as those deriving from biotechnology, should have the means for assessing and managing their benefits and risks. Governments should therefore ensure that expert scientific advice is available from regional or international sources not only to assure effective adoption of new technologies but to facilitate implementation of public health, human safety, and environmental guidelines or regulations associated with their potential side-effects.