The national science academies of the G8 nations and Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa have signed a statement on promotion and protection of innovation. Highlighting the need to balance rigorous enforcement of intellectual property with the need to promote and foster access to knowledge and remove barriers to innovation, and emphasising the importance of innovation systems for development, the statement calls on world leaders, particularly those meeting at the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm in June 2007, to:
Innovation promotion
- Encourage the development of long-term international research agendas to promote innovation in priority areas.
- Facilitate the transfer of knowledge and innovation to the commercial realm, especially between universities and industry, and establish tools to activate entrepreneurship.
- Work with developing countries to build systems of science, technology and innovation for economic and social development, and to promote the education and training of their future leaders particularly in science, engineering, technology, and medicine.
- Promote global knowledge policies that deal with generation, transmission, use and protection, rather than focusing on just the latter.
Innovation protection
- Encourage global efforts to simplify and enforce intellectual property while making sure that a proper balance is maintained between thoroughly examined formal intellectual property rights and free access to knowledge and information.
- Develop and implement policies to remove barriers to innovation, in addition to the provision of a fertile infrastructure to foster it.
- Establish bold initiatives by global financial institutions to facilitate and protect innovation in the developing world.
- Urge and assist the developing world to have local infrastructure, laws and regulations to catalyse and protect local innovation, thus providing a stimulating environment for the transfer of technology.
Related links
Joint science academies’ statement: Science and Technology for African Development (2005)
Joint science academies’ statement: sustainability, energy efficiency and climate protection