In-situ capacity building for telecom reform in Asia - next steps

Sujata Gamagewww.lirneasia.net

August 7, 2007

LIRNEasia, Colombo, Sri Lanka

Objective of CPRsouth

The conference aims to provide a forum for senior, junior and mid-career scholars to meet face-to-face and exchange ideas, establish networking opportunities and improve the quality of their scholarly work, in order to facilitate the long-term objective of fostering the next generation of active scholars and in-situ experts capable of contributing to ICT policy and regulatory reform in the region.

Strategy CPRsouth1-2005

QUALITYIdentify experts on the basis of quality of their research

PRESENCEIncrease the Web presence of the experts

RELEVANCEBring the experts and their work to the attention of the policymakers/operators

Status CPRsouth – 2007

QUALITYVery little leeway in affecting quality, unless there is a concerted field building effort. We have to work with what we get from universities

PRESENCE80% of Full-texts of papers by the CPRsouth community* are present on the Web; half of them have abstracts with the full text avaialble for a fee.

RELEVANCEFocus of this presentation

Those who have written one or more papers related to telecom reform in Asia, up to 2005

Reassessing Strategy for 2007

What can we learn from literature on impact of research in other applications?

Types of Applicationsand desired impact (work in progress)

Technicalinnovations in manufacturing and services

Technical/Policysolid waste or air quality problems

Policyimproving the lives of people through their better use of ICTS or better access to health care

SE&M: Science, Engineering and Management

Types of expertise SE&M INTENSIVE

In situ SE&M experts capable of contributing to the growth of manufacturing and services in the region

SE&M INTENSIVE with POLICY KNOW-HOW In situ SE&M experts with policy know-how capable of contributing the resolution of, say, solid waste or air quality problems in the region

POLICY INTENSIVEin-situ policy experts capable of contributing to the improving of, say, lives of people in Asia through their use of ICTS or access to health care

SE&M: Science, Engineering and Management

Relevance to technical applications

Measured by inputs/outputs Percent industry funding received Rate of patenting and licensing Citations in the patent literature Rate of industry start-upsExtensive literature on knowledge to innovation in manufacturing (Ben Martin, Keith Pavitt, Jonathan Katz, Daina HicKs and others from Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex; Diana Hicks, from the Georgia Institute of Technology; Caroline Wagenr from RAND/GWU other EU scholars; MIT?Literature on services is emergingInnovations systems theory ()Market forces v. Industrial policy debate (xx v. Romer)

Relevance to technical/policy applications

Measured by inputs The scientific status of the research Its ability to address primary environmental

concernsIt is accepted that relevance depends on the policy environment (i.e. position of modeled environmental issues on the political agenda)

ASSESSING THE POLICY RELEVANCE OF REGIONAL AIR QUALITY MODELST. Holloway. Columbia Earth Institute, Columbia U; http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EGS02/01497/EGS02-A-01497.pdf

Relevance to policy applications

Measured by how well the work by the experts relate to the policy environment

Answers are being sought to the [policy] questions at hand?

Intended users identified ? Means to reach them identified too?

BENSING Jozien M. (1) ; CARTS-VERHALLEN Wilma M. C. M. (2) ; DEKKER Joost (3) ; DELNOIJ Diana M. J. (2) ; GROENEWEGEN Peter P. (2003). Doing the right thing and doing it right: Toward a framework for assessing the policy relevance of health services research. International journal of technology assessment in health, vol. 19, no4, pp. 604-612 [9 page(s) (article)] (19 ref.)

Relevance by type of application (summary)

Technical SE&M expertise required. Quality, Presence and Relevance of research can be

measured, more or less Technical/policy

SE&M expertise and policy know-how required. Quality and Presence can be assessed but impact

difficult to measure Policy

Both policy and advocacy expertise required Presence can be assessed but Quality and Relevance

are difficult to measure; Quality and Relevance linked.

SE&M: Science, Engineering and Management

More on policy advocacy Edward Said

Speaking truth to powerSpeaking truth to power is no idealism: It is carefully weighing the alternatives, picking the right one, and then intelligently representing it where it can do the most good and cause the right change

(Edward Said (1994), Representations of the Intellectual: The Reith Lectures)

Lessons for CPRsouth….

In situ policy experts should be skilled in both policy and advocacy.

We can not expect individuals from knowledge institutions to fill that role? (except in a rare case or two?)

Institutions such as LIRNEasia are better positioned by mission, than knowledge institutions, to distill and present the scholarly research to policymakers. Are we doing that?

Dual mission organizations

Linking knowledge to practiceOrganizations with dual mission (knowledge/practice) as bridges?

Knowledge

Bridging can occur through (a) the use of university research to strengthen policy arguments (b) facilitating pass-trough of personnel from knowledge to practice and vice versa.

Practice

Conclusion

Research from universities and research institutes have to be relevant to dual mission organizations such as LIRNEasia

CPRsouth Web page should archive research documents for the benefit of dual mission organizations and occasional policy intellectuals from the

knowledge or practice domains

Questions for LIRNEasians

How much of the research that came out of the knowledge mapping exercise was used by you to strengthen the arguments made in the TRE, BoP and other policy relevant work done in the past?

If those research work are were not useful what would be useful?

How should CPRsouth be designed for better use by you and others like you?