28 May 2010: During its Ministerial Council Meeting, which took place in Paris, France, from 27-28 May 2010, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released a report titled “The OECD Innovation Strategy: Getting a Head Start on Tomorrow.” The report examines how governments can encourage private innovation, as well as if and how governments themselves can be more innovative to enable sustainable development. The OECD Innovation Strategy highlights both the economic and social roles of innovation, stating that the “objective of policy should not be innovation as such, but the application of innovation to make life better for individuals and society at large.” It notes that many innovation enabling reforms are not costly or complicated, such as simplifying administrative and regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship.
The report lists 14 policy principles for fostering innovation in the five categories of: empowering people to innovate; unleashing innovations; creating and applying knowledge; applying innovation to address global and social challenges; and improving governance and measurement of policies for innovation. Another key message of the OECD Innovation Strategy is that policy must reflect the manner in which innovation as it occurs today; i.e. through a diffuse network of actors who are not necessarily focused on traditional research and development. [Report Homepage] [OECD Ministerial Council Meeting Website] ][Ministerial Conclusions] [Climate-L.org Story on the Ministerial Council]
