For the EIS 2008 the methodology has been revised and the number of dimensions increased to 7 and grouped into 3 main blocks covering enablers, firm activities and outputs (Figure 1). The purpose of this revision is to have dimensions that bring together a set of related indicators to give a balanced assessment of the innovation performance in that dimension. The blocks and dimensions have been designed to accommodate the diversity of different innovation processes and models that occur in different national contexts. A summary of the European state of innovation is given in the picture below (click to enlarge)

Based on their innovation performance across 29 indicators, EU Member States fall into the following four country groups:

• Sweden, Finland, Germany, Denmark and the UK are the Innovation leaders, with innovation performance well above that of the EU average and all other countries. Of these countries, Germany is improving its performance fastest while Denmark is stagnating.
• Austria, Ireland, Luxembourg, Belgium, France and the Netherlands are the Innovation followers, with innovation performance below those of the innovation leaders but above that the EU average. Ireland’s performance has been increasing fastest within this group, followed by Austria.
• Cyprus, Estonia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy are the Moderate innovators, with innovation performance below the EU average. The trend in Cyprus’ innovation performance is well above the average for this group, followed by Portugal, while Spain and Italy are not improving their relative position.
• Malta, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Latvia and Bulgaria are the Catching-up countries with innovation performance well below the EU average. All of these countries have been catching up, with the exception of Lithuania.  Bulgaria and Romania have been improving their performance the fastest.

The full report can be downloaded here

I have an ingenious idea for a company. My company will be in the business of selling computer games. But, unlike other computer game companies, mine will never have to hire a single programmer, game designer, or graphic artist. Instead I’ll simply find people who know how to make games, and ask them to donate their games to me. Naturally, anyone generous enough to donate a game will immediately relinquish all further rights to it. From then on, I alone will be the copyright-holder, distributor, and collector of royalties. This is not to say, however, that I’ll provide no “value-added.” My company will be the one that packages the games in 25-cent cardboard boxes, then resells the boxes for up to $300 apiece.

But why would developers donate their games to me? Because they’ll need my seal of approval. I’ll convince developers that, if a game isn’t distributed by my company, then the game doesn’t “count” — indeed, barely even exists — and all their labor on it has been in vain.

Admittedly, for the scheme to work, my seal of approval will have to mean something. So before putting it on a game, I’ll first send the game out to a team of experts who will test it, debug it, and recommend changes. But will I pay the experts for that service? Not at all: as the final cherry atop my chutzpah sundae, I’ll tell the experts that it’s their professional duty to evaluate, test, and debug my games for free!

On reflection, perhaps no game developer would be gullible enough to fall for my scheme. I need a community that has a higher tolerance for the ridiculous — a community that, even after my operation is unmasked, will study it and hold meetings, but not “rush to judgment” by dissociating itself from me. But who on Earth could possibly be so paralyzed by indecision, so averse to change, so immune to common sense?

I’ve got it: academics!

This was just the hilarious but oh so true intro to the actual review. Read the rest here. Or order Willinsky’s book here. And of course you can also download his book for free right here.

The Board’s 18 high-level members, coming from the worlds of business, higher education and research all have a track record in top-level innovation and are fully independent in their decision-making. The Board will be responsible for steering the EIT’s strategic orientation and for the selection, monitoring and evaluation of the Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs).

After discussions on whether the European version of MIT would become a virtual institute, a brick and mortar institution or something in between… After a study claimed that a European Insitute of Technology was actually not necessary… After feasibility studies had been neglected….

After the decision for the establishment of the EIT was formally taken and published in the Official Journal of the European Union in April earlier this year… After its name was changed into European Institute of Innovation and Technology… After beautiful Budapest won the race and became the official location of the EIT in June… And after the EIT’s first Governing Board was officially appointed on 30th July 2008…

It is now time to get to work!

The only thing still missing is a real logo. As long as there is none, I’ll just keep on using the one I have been using for the last years. Looks familiar, doesn’t it?

WARF filed this complaint to ensure that the interests of the UW-Madison and its inventors are protected and that WARF receives the compensation to which it is entitled for Intel’s unlicensed use of the invention. This compensation will be used to advance continued research at the university. The foundation’s complaint identifies the Intel CoreTM 2 Duo microarchitecture as infringing WARF’s United States Patent No. 5,781,752, entitled “Table Based Data Speculation Circuit for Parallel Processing Computer.”

The technology, patented in 1998, was developed by four researchers at the UW-Madison, including Professor Gurindar Sohi, currently the chair of the university’s Computer Science Department. Intel has aggressively marketed the benefits of this invention as a feature of its Core 2 technology. “The technology significantly enhances opportunities for instruction level parallelism in modern processors, thereby increasing their execution speed,” states Michael Falk, WARF general counsel.

The researchers had several discussions with Intel representatives on the possibility of licensing the technology. Intel repeatedly refused but nevertheless incorporated it into its products. Intel never informed the researchers that it was using the patented technology. WARF is now asking the court to declare that Intel is infringing on its patent and to stop Intel from selling the product. Also they asked for Intel to cover WARF’s legal fees and pay damages to WARF. Considering Intel’s dominant position in this market and the huge success of the Core 2 Duo, this last thing might prove very lucrative for the University of Wisconsin.

If it can be conclusively proven that Intel is using this specific technology, I guess that Intel will soon get together with WARF to come to a settlement…

Now, isn’t this frustrating. After a hard day’s work, putting all effort in converting my thoughts to text, I read this: Philip M Parker is the world’s fastest book author, and given that he has been at it only for about five years and already has more than 85,000 books to his name, he is also probably the most prolific. Parker himself says the total is well over 200,000.

So how does Philip M Parker (professor of innovation, business and society at Insead in France) do all that? When he turns to a new subject, he seizes and shakes it till several books, or several hundred, emerge. Parker invented a machine that writes books. He says it takes about 20 minutes to write one. I don’t know what kind of device this is, but I am sure I want one! Beats an iPod, Kindle or a Mac Air anytime. Next week, the Education Guardian Weekly will have a closer look at the machine…

Update: here is how it works and here’s a video

Earlier this month, the Malaysian Ministry for Higher Education and the World Bank hosted the Regional Higher Education Conference Strategic Choices for Higher Education Reform in Kuala Lumpur. The joint MOHE/World Bank conference was not a coincidence. The timing of the event coincided with the completion of a research report by the Malaysian Economic Planning Unit and the World Bank: “Malaysia and the Knowledge Economy: Building a World-Class Higher Education System” (pdf 1 MB).

The 258 page report presents a good analysis of the current situation and puts forward some sound policy recommendations. Most of these are in line with my own observations and my field work that I conducted in Malaysia last year. Below is an executive summary of the executive summary and a few additional thoughts and observations coming from my side:

Introduction

The progress of the Malaysia economy in recent decades has been nothing short of impressive, a reflection of strong macroeconomic management and political stability. However, Malaysia’s sustained competitive edge is not guaranteed. Recent efforts by the Government have brought about significant achievements, attesting that with appropriate funding, dedication, and high caliber leadership, Malaysian universities can achieve excellence. However, few Malaysian universities have achieved a competitive position internationally.

Steering and Governance

The attainment of world class status by Malaysia universities hinges, in part, on keeping a fine balance between two competing objectives: expanding the system and improving quality. Relaxing the administrative and financial rules and controls that public universities are required to conform to in their daily management would allow them to focus on important institutional development issues. The 1996 legislative framework that was designed to enhance public university autonomy as part of the “corporatization” reform should be fully implemented, along with some strategic additions.

Cost sharing and accessibility

There are clear indications that Malaysian students and families are willing to contribute to the cost of their education, provided they can enroll in universities perceived as offering good quality and relevant programs. However, as universities consider increasing tuition fees to promote cost-sharing, they must ensure that this does not have adverse effects on equity, particularly with respect to student loans and grants.

To promote greater efficiency and innovativeness in the use of public resources, the Government should consider expanding the amount of funds available to universities through performance-based funding mechanisms. To integrate its research universities into the global research community, Malaysia will need to consider several options for restructuring its research funding mechanisms. One of the most effective ways of allocating research funds is to promote the development of centers of excellence.

Quality

While quality education may be defined in terms of internationally accepted criteria and standards for academic programs and educational experiences, a “world-class” education implies achieving a much higher threshold of quality where academic performance and output are measured relative to a league of very select institutions. Academic programs could be reformed to enhance the transparency and quality assurance mechanisms of the Malaysian higher education system. High quality teaching and innovative methods of delivery, particularly at the undergraduate level, are key components of top level universities. This requires avoiding excessive teaching loads, enabling integration of research experiences in undergraduate courses, relating course evaluations to promotion considerations and applying transparent criteria for faculty promotion. The current faculty shortage can be addressed by reviewing the current retirement age of 56. Student learning must be enhanced so that graduates can succeed in the local and international labor markets.

Employability

Concerns about the workplace relevance of university education remain. The Government has responded to the rising numbers of unemployed graduates with numerous commendable policy initiatives. But the main challenge for policy makers is not simply ensuring that graduates find employment, but rather employment that best uses their education. The Government could focus on several longer-term policy priorities to encourage more efficient labor markets that will lead to improvements in labor market outcomes for university graduates and for other educational groups, and a more effective transmission of knowledge and skills from education and training institutions to the real economy.

The national innovation system

Malaysia’s quest to become a sophisticated knowledge-based economy is likely to be frustrated, unless policies to link Malaysian firms with universities and research institutes are strengthened. A world-class national higher education system is a sine qua non for improving the national innovation system. The Ninth Malaysia Plan sets the ambitious target that science & technology activities contribute at least one-third of Malaysia’s annual economic growth. However, Malaysia’s skills and technology upgrading policies did not have the intended effects. Besides support to the university system to achieve “world class” status, and the policy to ensure continued growth, prosperity, and rising standards of living, Malaysia must move towards becoming an innovative knowledge-based economy. This will both reinforce the demand for universities to produce students with skills for innovation and encourage a spirit of innovation throughout the education sector. A variety of complementary policy reforms can help to improve the efficiency of the Malaysian national innovation system in which universities will play a major role:

• Funding research competitively and selectively.
• Establishing professionally managed Technology Commercialization Offices housed in selected universities.
• Developing a Technology Broker program.
• Involving the universities in regional development efforts.
• Strengthening university-industry linkages.
• Building the institutional capacity for third mission activities.
• Developing entrepreneurship courses.
• Aligning the university culture with the business culture.

In conclusion

The Malaysian higher education system is at a critical point in its evolution. The Government has the potential to continue to build on past achievements and foster a system that meets the needs of a leading knowledge-based economy. At the same time, without focused and strategic reforms, the Malaysian higher education system may lag behind neighboring countries that are actively developing and rewarding the most innovative and accomplished universities. Such reforms will need to focus on:

1. choosing more effective governance and financing models;
2. improving the overall quality of the universities with a focus on academic programs, faculty management, and student learning;
3. equipping university graduates with the tools necessary for a knowledge-based economy;
4. strengthening the national innovation system by creating stronger links between Malaysian firms and universities.

Although the report appears to do a good job in diagnosing the problems and in finding the appropriate solutions for them, the crucial part will be in the way in which the recommendations will be actually transposed into policies and – even more important – whether the policies will actually be effectuated. I have come across many good initiatives that address the issues above, but many of them lack real results because they get stuck in government bureaucracy, in existing vested interests or because of contradicting governmental policies in adjacent fields.

The autonomy (or corporatisation) as foreseen in the 1996 reforms has never been actually implemented or realised. Therefore, the most important recommendation is to come to a true implementation of autonomy in Malaysian higher education. Hopefully this report marks the start of truly meritocratic policies and true freedom and autonomy of the Malaysian higher education institutions. This will in turn also enhance the innovative capacity of the Malaysian economy and the society as a whole.

Update: also take a look at Bakri Musa’s analysis of the report in Malaysiakini (subscription required, but reproduced at Education Malaysia).

Yesterday evening I attended the first seminar in the new Higher Education Colloquium Series organised by the Faculty of Education and Social Work of the University of Sydney. The first presentation – ‘trying to de-mystify public policy for higher education’ was given by Geoff Gallop, director of the Graduate School of Government at the University of Sydney and former Premier of Western Australia.

He made several interesting observations and recommendations. Todays higher education section of The Australian emphasised his plea for further deregulation of the sector. Although the Australian system is very market driven, there is still a lot of micro-management coming from the federal government. He argues that the argument for significant deregulation is gathering momentum on the basis of a general case for more flexibility and more diversity overall. I hope the current Minister of Education takes his advise on board. Flexibility and diversity are very apparent in the vocabulary of the policy makers, but I am not sure whether deregulation is…

Another important point he made was (paradoxically?) a greater involvement of the state governments.

Higher education is a federal responsibility an, according to Gallop, this has made state governments wary of investing in universities. For this you need to know that in the last decades or so, most state governments have been labor governments while the federal government is led by the liberals. This lead state governments to think that if they started investing in universities, this would just be an argument for the federal government to lower spending on the – already underfunded – higher education system.

Examples from Western Australia and Queeensland show that this is not the case. Hence, Gallop argues that state governments should use their universities in their regional economic and innovation policies. To accomplish this however, universities need to become more politically savvy. They will need to act more pro-active in order to convince their state governments that their universities can play a major role in revitalizing the regional economy. After all, they all talk about developing knowledge economies in their states and obviously, universities play (or should play) a crucial role in that. Hence, both can profit from such a partnership.

A very interesting presentation and discussion. The series will continue on a monthly basis for the rest of this year with a range of very interesting speakers such as Richard Johnstone (Carrick Institute; 23 Aug), Simon Marginson (University of Melbourne; 27 Sept), Catherine Armitage (The Australian; 18 Oct), Michael Gallagher (Group of 8; 15 Nov)) and Ingrid Moses (University of Canberra; 4 Dec). I won’t be able to attend the next one in August because of two conferences in Europe, but I’ll probably write something on the other presentations. Further information on location, etc , have a look at the FESW website.

More than 25 years after the Bayh-Dole Act came into force, Members of the Subcommittee on Technology & Innovation met to discuss the future of the law. The law allows universities to patent inventions that result from government funded R&D. Inside HigherEd reports that most members agreed that circumstances have changed the last 25 years. Competition is coming from China and India, instead of Germany and Japan. Technology is now more complex, with technological innovations being based on a bundle of patents instead of a few. And…universities have become competitors not just collaborators. This last point was observed by Susan Butts, the senior director of external science and technology programs at Dow Chemical.

She agreed with other members that there was a potential for more collaboration between universities and industry, especially since private funding for research and development has increased over the years. But, she said, a primary obstacle to more partnerships is the potential for disputes over intellectual property.

At the heart of the choice faced by universities is whether they should opt for as many patent royalties as possible, or get in on the ground floor with partners from various industries. (Lemley said one IT official had referred to universities as “crack addicts,” hooked on royalties.) Butts argued that licensing revenues are not growing quickly enough to fill the “funding gap,” a reality that would necessitate more private partnerships.American universities, she said, “in stark contrast with most foreign universities, have become substantially less attractive as research partners for companies.

As U.S. universities increasingly focus on controlling intellectual property and maximizing their revenues from licensing inventions, they have become more like competitors than partners to companies that sponsor research with their faculty and students.” The result, she said, is that many companies choose instead to work with a foreign university where there will be less negotiations and more of a willingness to be flexible with intellectual property.

Is this a case of University Inc. going too far in their corporate drift? …or just a case of business fearing more competition?

A nice little snippet from last week’s issue of Nature about a good initiative in open access to research:

“The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), a leading private sponsor of biomedical research in the United States, will require its 300-plus investigators to make their research publicly accessible within six months of publication.

Articles that do not meet this requirement will not be considered when the investigators apply for contract renewals. The policy, announced on 26 June, will come into effect at the start of 2008 and will apply only to papers on which an HHMI investigator is the first, last or corresponding author.”

The researchers are still able to publish in many journals (including Nature) because the Institute will cover the costs that some publishers charge for making papers publicly available after a certain period of time.

“Universities are tremendous wellsprings of knowledge. By encouraging widespread access to information and linking researchers with interested parties, we are hoping to more fully realize the innovation potential that research offers.”

Originally proposed by Commission President José Manuel Barroso as part of the relaunched Lisbon Agenda, the aim of the EIT is to strengthen the European ‘knowledge-triangle’ of research, education and technology. The European Commission first expressed a preference for the EIT as a single institution. After a consultation of a wide range of stakeholders it proposed (pdf) a decentralised network structure in October 2006.

This EIT is organised around six Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs). These KIC’s should be seen as joint-ventures of partner organisations representing universities, research organisations and businesses which are intended to form an integrated partnership in response to calls for proposals from the EIT.

Tindemans and Soete find that the decentralized EIT that has been proposed by the Commission is found to be not feasible. It is too dispersed; it would not increase significantly the research output in a field; it cannot match a top tier university in providing an environment for training graduates; and a dispersed institute cannot adequately organize technology transfer. Instead of the decentralised model, they propose a clustered model. One of the major implications seems to be that there will be multiple EITs and that they will be more geared towards the regional context.

While they acknowledge that the underlying rationale for setting up the EIT is critical, they caution against making blanket assumptions about Europe’s inability to convert knowledge into commerce, to organize critical mass, or to reward entrepreneurship and excellence in research and education. The study team cites evidence from the latest European Commission Innovation Scoreboard, which found that several of the smaller European countries and Germany perform significantly better than, or as well as the US and Japan (see below). Not all EU countries, regions and institutions have problems with converting knowledge into commerce and critical mass, rewarding entrepreneurship and excellence in research and education. The authors warn that ignoring this fact might result in assuming too easily that a European level institutional solution is necessary in cases where national or regional approaches might be more appropriate.

(click to enlarge)

“Nobody in the US would think of establishing an AIT (American Institute of Technology) so if we think of creating a European Institute of Technology it should recognize the present strongholds in research, in graduate training and in innovation. Otherwise, it will represent little more than what the French call ‘un saupoudrage’ of undoubtedly substantial additional research monies but which spread over such a wide number of research centres will barely make an impact.”

German Minister of Research and Education Annette Schavan announced in October last year that the Ludwig-Maximilian University (Munchen) and the Technical University of Munchen and the University of Karlsruhe became Germany’s first ‘elite universities’. The three institutions are the biggest winners in Germany’s ‘excellence initiative’. This was established to improve the country’s chronically under-funded universities (and its decreasing reputation abroad), by encouraging high level research and competition. The three universities will receive around 120 million euros each in federal and state funds over the next five years.

This week, the finalists for the second round were announced. Being one of the winners is crucial considering that getting designated ‘elite’ will mean enjoying a piece of the 1.9 billion euros pie, made available from 2007 to 2011. This time the result seems less skewed towards technology, and less towards the southern part of Germany than the first round. The finalists include two institutes of higher education in Berlin, the Free University and the Humboldt University. The others are the RWTH Aachen and the universities of Bochum, Freiburg, Gottingen, Heidelberg and Constance.

The final decision on which of these eight will be designated ‘elite’ will be made in October.

Some interesting views from the German academic community on the excellence initiative can be heard in this radio interview (from NPR; 4:26 in english):

Listen to the interview in Realplayer

Students from local colleges, frequently move out of state when they graduate:

If Stanford can hatch world-famous companies around Palo Alto, politicians assume, their colleges can, too. But with so many trying to spin universities away from their traditional academic focus into engines of economic development, it is worth considering whether investing in local universities can achieve that goal. This strategy is based on the view that research done by professors can form the basis for local start-up companies and that the graduates of the university can supply the entrepreneurs and employees.

But advocates should remember an old maxim of economic development: Beware of investing in things that can move. As it turns out, graduates and research ideas both tend to move around a lot. Subsidizing teaching is problematic as a development strategy because graduates frequently move out of state.

They looked at such factors as having successful patents at universities or where highly influential science articles had originated. They found little evidence that the ideas helped local businesses any more than businesses in other areas. The one thing the study does find to be consistently associated with high-tech start-ups is the presence of star scientists – not the ideas, which can be copied, but the scientists themselves. This seems to be the one way in which a university can be used as an engine of business growth.