Globalization does not occur in a vacuum. It results from numerous agreements between sovereign nation-states that are the principal actors in international legal and financial systems. State-sanctioned isolationist impulses, by contrast, can result in disaster for a country's citizens as its S&T capacity, and hence its competitive position and economic health, wither on the vine.

It is also essential to recognize that for the private sector to keep on contributing to the development of S&T capacity, the public sector should maintain an enabling environment - local, national, and international. Meanwhile, governments should provide regulatory frameworks to protect the public interest and safety, and fund research and development efforts for public goods.

Because these roles interact in complex ways and can sometimes clash, it is important to define a framework for the public-private interface so that each party is sufficiently aware of its domain's boundaries and where it may overlap with that of the other. The national legal structure should be clear and predictable. It should define the pertinent health and safety regulations as well as the labor and financial aspects that affect the activities of the private sector. The legal structure should also provide incentives for foreign partners to undertake technology transfer to the indigenous private sector. And it should provide incentives to build active technology centers in developing nations that link to the local university system, thereby helping to create opportunities for the training and support of future scientists and engineers.

Recognizing that there is no single formula - every country, in every field, has its own specifics - such a framework should include the following:

• Definition of the scope of the public domain and the maintenance of public spending for public-goods research. From the time of 18th century Scottish economist Adam Smith, it has been known that the private sector will not invest in public goods, despite their demonstrable value to the public. It is not a private company's function to do so.
• Definition of the boundaries of the public and private domains so as to take maximum advantage of the complementarities and reduce the overlaps. Careful decisions here would also lay the groundwork for more and increasingly effective public-private partnerships; and they would uphold the primary roles of entities such as research universities, public research laboratories, and small local companies as well as the large multinationals. The special position of private nonprofit foundations should also be taken into account.

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