Science, Technology and Innovation for Economic Growth: Opportunities and Challenges for latecomer countries facing Dynamic Global Value Chains
Scientific advances, technological breakthroughs and innovative acumen have created gaps between frontrunners and latecomer countries. There are technological clusters with high-skilled knowledge generators engaged in producing knowledge, mainly located in high-income countries; while the low-value added production processes are transferred to low-cost & low-skilled labour dominated areas in the low-income countries of the global South. As there is no escape from technological advancements, it is imperative to examine the way forward for the latecomer countries of the Global South having paucity of resources, abundant low-skilled labour and immature institutions to grow and develop. There are historical evidences, when the latecomer country was able to leapfrog or catch-up with those in the frontier, as was in the cases of European countries and Japan catching-up with Britain and US mainly in the post World War II era, while East Asian countries entered the rich-men club in the later part of twentieth century. These success cases provides inspiration to the other latecomer countries to create the unique path with mission-oriented policies for structural transformation to generate more valued goods and employment opportunities for inclusive and sustainable future growth.
With these broad objectives, the session will focus on the question of catching-up of latecomer countries with the front-runners in the fast changing technologies and dynamic global value chains.