The world is changing at a rapid pace, driven by science and technology. The accumulation of scientific knowledge and its technological applications are accelerating at a dizzying clip, enabled in large part by ever more powerful computers and lightning-fast communications. Yet the global reality is that many innovations fail to accrue to those who need them most; and benefits are not at all shared equitably around the planet. The international community has given inadequate attention to the needs of capacity building in science and technology (S&T) as the engine that drives knowledge-based development. It is precisely this issue - the need to correct that critical omission - that we address here: the available personnel, infrastructure, investment, institutions, and regulatory framework to conduct scientific research and technological development.
Business-as-usual will leave an ever-growing gap between 'have' and 'have-not' nations. A vicious cycle is at work whereby the developing nations (especially the S&T-lagging countries) fall farther and farther behind the industrialized nations that have the resources - in financial as well as human-development terms - to apply scientific advances and new technologies ever more intensively and creatively. The current disparity is likely to grow even wider as the industrialized nations continue to master the tools of science and invention, vastly outspend the developing nations in research and development (R&D), and even capture some of the developing nations' most precious human resources for their own use.
Local S&T capacity is essential for using and contributing to the world's valuable store of knowledge. Leaving the scientific and technological breakthroughs to the highly industrialized nations and expecting the rest of the world to benefit from the results is an illusory and unproductive policy. The tools involved in such breakthroughs are often very sophisticated and their use requires a great deal of knowledge at the local level, as well as an ability to adapt and extend them to meet local needs.
Universities have an essential role to play in building S&T capacities. The university in developing nations has a special function as a locus for the modernizing forces of society, for the promotion of the 'values of science,' and for mediating between the political and industrial spheres of a nation's life. The university's research facilities in particular must orchestrate the brainpower of the faculty, take responsibility for training new generations of talent, and participate in the transformation of the nation's S&T base. Regrettably, the current structures of higher-education systems in many countries are inadequate to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Wide-ranging reforms are needed.
The culture and values of science are critical for building a global community. Science is not only itself a culture of global dimensions, it induces a cultural current that strongly and positively affects societies in which it flourishes - including those that at first were wracked by poverty and hunger, riven by civil strife, and embedded in fiscal crisis. Science brings imagination and vision to bear across the board - on theoretical speculations as well as on practical problems and critical decisions - allowing people to analyze present (and future) situations, make sounder choices, and invest their resources more wisely. The culture of science and the open, honest values that it engenders are enormously important above and beyond the material benefits that they help produce for human welfare.
Investments in science and technology are increasingly important for economic growth. While it is not possible to demonstrate a direct causation between the rates of investment in research and development and outcomes in terms of increased national Gross Domestic Product (GDP), it is true that a growing level of investment in research and development is generally correlated with improved GDP-growth outcomes. When national research and development activities are taken as a whole, it is seen that the high-income industrialized nations - Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, the United States, and northern and western Europe - all spend between 1.5 percent and 3.8 percent of their GDP on research and development. National governments in developing nations should increase their spending considerably, certainly above 1 percent of GDP and preferably closer to 1.5 percent, if there is to be any hope of not falling farther behind the industrialized states.
Building capacity in agriculture, engineering, health, and the social sciences is essential for national development. In the developing world especially, the need for problem-solvers working together in interdisciplinary and systems-level fashion is critical. In all the needed areas of a society's interaction with science and technology, agriculture, engineering and medicine, should loom large. And the development of capacity in social science should be regarded as no less important. Well-trained and insightful economists, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, public administrators, and other social-science professionals are especially important for providing policy analyses, developing the S&T culture, building institutions, and maintaining the public-private interface for S&T promotion.
Our recommendations represent universal needs for inventing a better future. Stronger S&T capacity in the developing nations is not a luxury but an absolute necessity if these nations are to participate as full partners in the world's fast-forming, knowledge-based economy. Because S&T capacity building is likely to be demanding and far-reaching, and necessarily tailored to each country's particular situation, it will require the involvement of all pertinent actors in its implementation. There is much that national governments can do and much that other groups of social actors - such as local govern-ments, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, international and regional organizations, the S&T communities, philanthropies, and the media - can do to change the course of events so that the benefits of science and technology flow more equitably to all members of the human family.
