Innovation can bring benefits, but possible risks too. The emergence of nanotechnology, which manipulates barely visible materials for industrial purposes, is a case in point, and policymakers are taking a close look.

Innovation is not just about new gadgets, but also about using old technologies in new and improved ways. Sails are a case in point, as SkySails GmbH & Co. KG explains.

Just like R&D, researchers are vulnerable to economic downturns. R&D in industry is closely linked to creating new products and production techniques and to a country’s innovation effort. In 2006, before the current recession hit the global economy, around 2.6 million researchers, or about 65% of all researchers, including those in the government and education sectors, were employed by businesses in the OECD area. However, whereas four out of five researchers work in businesses in the US and two out of three in Japan, only one out of two do so in the EU. Business researchers exceed 10 per 1,000 employees in Finland, Sweden, Japan and the US; they number six per 1,000 in France and Germany, and four per 1,000 in the UK. Mexico, Turkey, Poland and the Slovak Republic have fewer than one researcher per 1,000 employees in industry.

 "Dude, the OECD tweets? That's freaking awesome". So said a response to the OECD's new Twitter account, perhaps surprised that the OECD, known for its long in-depth reports, also posts on Twitter. The 140 characters Twitter allows is a format that suits the OECD well, says Alison Benney of media relations. "Not only are our statistics and news releases easy to abbreviate and post with a link, but it doesn't take much to converse about them, or to tap our experts for more in-depth follow-up," she said. The OECD created its Twitter account in March 2009, and has over 800 followers. This adds to a social media toolbox that includes Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. OECD Observer articles have been bookmarked for a range of social media since 2007.

A jolt of innovation can be a powerful antidote to recession. But innovation risks being hit hard by the economic crisis as the capital to finance research and develop new products grows scarce. The economic fallout could be serious, since innovation is a key driver of growth.

Gadgets and Gigawatts: Policies for Energy Efficient Electronics

Most people would be able to count between 20 and 30 electronic gadgets scattered around their own homes, from televisions to battery chargers. By 2010, there will be over 3.5 billion mobile phonesubscribers around the world, 2 billion TVs in use and 1 billion personal computers.

I've no doubt that there will be a role for (fewer) newspapers in the years ahead, and that paper will continue to remain viable for specialist print applications ("Print screen", by Larry Kilman, World Association of Newspapers, in No. 268, July 2008). However, it is inevitable that online access and digital devices will displace a lot of paper in the long run.

Like Alice, the OECD appears to be bursting through to the other side of its looking glass. Change may be the order of the day, but as the organisation approaches 50, lessons from past work on innovation might speak to the current economic crisis.

The first ever full OECD ministerial meeting held in Asia closed in June with a declaration to build confidence and secure the future of the Internet economy. The declaration sets out a roadmap to upgrade the communication policies that have helped the Internet become the economic driver that it is today and safeguard its future development.

Today, barely more than a decade after its first commercial incarnation, it is difficult to think of a policy domain that is not affected by the Internet.

The Internet and the constellation of information technologies it connects are viewed as essential ingredients in addressing some of the world's most pressing policy issues: sustainable and increasing economic growth, ageing societies, environmental management, energy efficiency, the eradication of poverty, and many more. The implications for economic and social development are far-reaching and profound, including for the next several billion users.

See Joong Choi
Chairman, Korea Communications Commission

In 1998, the Internet was emerging as a major new medium for communications. OECD ministers gathered in Ottawa, Canada, and established policies promoting online activities in areas such as privacy, security, taxation and consumer protection. Since the Ottawa ministerial, the global Internet economy has grown remarkably.

Can you remember life before the Internet? Though quite a new technology, already a world without the web has become as unthinkable for many of us as a world without telephones. But what of the future? Can the benefits of this extraordinary technology be multiplied, and how can the thornier challenges be met?

The agenda for the ministerial conference on The Future of the Internet Economy is built around three themes.

The Internet has permeated people’s lives and has become a cornerstone of our physical, economic and social infrastructures. What does this mean for policy?

A few years ago, certain users of Microsoft Windows found that their personal files had been translated into gibberish. In the panic to locate the programme that would decode the file, this message appeared:

Would you shop in a store if you knew the credit card machine at the till was likely to send your bank details to an organised gang somewhere abroad? Such incidents happen every day in the physical world. In fact, credit card fraud from all kinds of real world transactions is a major global crime, and whole government websites are dedicated to fighting it.

Many broadband users may find the wind has gone out of their sails, especially if they live in rural areas. What are the solutions?

Only a fifth of the world’s population currently has access to the Internet. That figure should be increased.

Stephan-Noël looks anxiously about the hut at the computer terminals. Through the walls of thatch drifts the faint, pervasive scent of vanilla. A girl saunters in, her face painted with the saffron used by Malagasy women both as make-up and protection against the sun. Stephan-Noël exchanges a few words with her, but his mind is on the eventuality of a connection break.

The number of broadband subscribers in the OECD rose to 235 million by December 2007, up 18% from 200 million subscribers in December 2006.This growth increased broadband penetration rates to 20 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, up from 16.9 in December 2006.

A decade ago when telecoms were expanding, cities around the world were faced with shortages of phone numbers. New access codes were introduced and extra digits added to meet expanding demand.

One country with an exemplary record in broadband is Korea, host of the 2008 OECD ministerial meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy. On broadband reach it is the seventh in the OECD in December 2007, for fibre-optics it lies second only to Japan and is well ahead of the rest of the field, and for download speeds, it is in a comfortable third, after France and Japan. Korea is also a leader in mobile technology.

The Internet’s open standards have accelerated the convergence of voice, data, video and wireless services, generating new business models, products and services, as well as vibrant new markets. Prices have fallen and functionality has risen. Few sectors exemplify this convergence more than television.

The excitement over new media and their vaunted utility is easy to understand. What is more difficult to grasp is why conventional wisdom holds that the rise of digital media must mean the “decline” of newspapers, which have now been around for more than 400 years. Because the conventional wisdom is wrong.

Imagine an information highway that allows all citizens in the world to have unlimited access to unlimited content, from information to entertainment, from news to networking, in all technically possible formats.

Since May 2008 passengers travelling on the Thalys high-speed train between Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Cologne can now access broadband thanks to technology combining the Internet and satellite communications. Launched on 14 May as part of the European Space Agency’s “Broadband to Trains” initiative, this latest commercial application was developed by UK company.

Are you getting all you can from your computer? Harry Hill, a British stand-up comic, once joked that to get more use from his PC, he turned it on at night and used the screen as a reading lamp.

The advent of the Internet has revolutionised the compilation, assessment and distribution of information relating to healthcare. This has modified the traditional doctor-patient relationship in a number of significant ways.

The growth of the information superhighway and the widespread use of advanced transport technology have led some to postulate that we are now witnessing what could be called the “end of geography,” and the “death of distance”.

The Internet has come a long way since it entered the public domain some 15 years ago. One man who has made it his business to follow Internet’s development is Henry Copeland, founder and director of Blogads, one of the world’s largest blog-specific advertising companies, and Pressflex, a web-hosting company dedicated to the needs of small journals and magazines such as this one, and larger commercial titles, such as FT Business. As Mr Copeland points out, all his business grew organically, without the help of business angels, but with offices now in North America and Europe, and clients or users in every continent. We interviewed him in his home base in the US, by email of course.

Social network websites such as Myspace and Facebook that have come on the scene in the last few years may be hugely popular, but they are not without their dissenters. Here is a humourous view from French writer and businessman, Jacques Rosselin.*

In most European countries, the volume of Internet and other e-commerce sales transactions has risen since 2004, with Denmark, the UK, Ireland and France reporting the highest shares. The increase in the share of e-commerce sales between 2003 and 2006 has been sharpest in Denmark, with 10 percentage points, Norway (8), Portugal (7) and Spain (5). Ireland saw a slight drop in its volume, albeit from a high base.

Imagine a road surface that turns pink when cold. A new road varnish developed by a French firm, Eurovia, promises to do just that. Road surfaces treated with the varnish change colour, so drivers would be warned when roads turn icy.

Wikigender.org: Did you know that over 40% of girls in Bangladesh are married before the age of 15? Or that 95% of Egyptian women had undergone some form of female genital cutting?

Outlook deteriorates; Transport tackles CO2; Development setback; News shorts; Adult skills; Wikigender; Four new members; Pensions; Tax drag; Liechtenstein affair; Economy; Soundbites; Eastern promise; Brazil visit; Plus ça change…

The great 20th century sinologist, Joseph Needham, once drew up a list of 24 technical innovations brought from China to the West. They ranged from gunpowder and the wheelbarrow to printing, cast iron, the magnetic compass and the chain suspension bridge. By 1600 the torch of innovation had passed to the West.

Finland took the number one spot in the OECD’s PISA 2006 survey, a comprehensive and much-quoted international yardstick of secondary school student performance.

This is an era in which science is needed, arguably more than ever. In the environment, energy and innovation generally, smart investors rely on smart thinkers. The public needs trusty scientists, to pursue knowledge and to arbitrate in debates about the likes of climate change, nuclear energy or nanotechnology.

Innovation has played a modest role in explaining growth in both China and India in recent years, but both countries have work to do to sustain their promising growth paths. Moreover, there are important differences between the respective challenges that each country faces.

A statue of Korea's legendary General Lee Soon Shin stands guard outside the Ministry of Information and Communications in central Seoul. A poster announcing a major international joint Korean/OECD ministerial conference on the Future of the Internet Economy to be held on 17-18 June hangs at the front of the building.

“Education over the Internet is going to be so big it is going to make e-mail usage look like a rounding error.” So remarked Cisco’s chief, John Chambers, in an article in The New York Times in 1999. But even the boss of a company that produces technology for the Internet might not have guessed just how large e-education would become.

The OECD is a world leader in statistics, but keeping up that lead demands innovation. The statistics services of the OECD already provide smart databases online at www.oecd.org/statistics, while graphs and tables in many of our publications are backed up with our new StatLink service, a link allowing access to source Excel files at a click. Now the OECD has gone another step by opening its data out to websites that specialise in lively use and presentation of the statistics, and reader interaction.

Was the dot.com boom a fortuitous circumstance, or the fruit of brilliant minds? Was it the hardware or the software that spurred the IT revolution? And to what extent did government efforts to free up markets and provide enabling business and innovation environments play a role?

The history of human progress is also a history of innovation, and OECD countries have been rediscovering what this means for the global economy. Consider the US. For two decades the world’s largest and most advanced economy has been driving forward the frontiers of technical progress. Yet whether in information technology, pharmaceuticals or biotechnology, the US knows it must innovate to stay in front.

The Antarctic ozone hole, as measured by NOAA’s Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SBUV) instrument, during October 2006.

When Russia launched the first-ever satellite into space 50 years ago on 4 October 1957, it was an event that won worldwide admiration. There was some trepidation too. With the Second World War barely over a decade earlier and the Cold War in deep freeze, West Europeans were understandably a little nervous at the thought of Soviet “Sputnik” satellites floating over their territories.

China is becoming one of the world’s fastest growing players on the global information and communications technology market.

Satellites are not just about communications or defence, but can help us understand if not resolve some difficult environmental challenges, including climate change. They are investments in innovation whose benefits for humanity should speak for themselves.

OECD Observer No 263, October 2007

Even the sharpest leading edge companies can no longer survive on their own R&D efforts, but must open up their networks and collaborate with others: this was the main message from an expert meeting held at the OECD on 27 April called “Globalisation and Open Innovation”.

Some 82,900 foreign scholars were in teaching or research at US higher education institutions in the 2003-04 academic year. Most were engaged in research, although the share in teaching has increased. Two-thirds are engaged in scientific or engineering fields, with a fast-growing proportion in life and biological sciences.

Are you a left-brain or a right-brain person? Do you learn while you sleep? Do men and boys have different brains than women and girls? Popular misconceptions such as these pepper ads, magazine covers and conversations. What is fiction and what is fact, and where did they originate?

A collection of about 100 of the most relevant internationally agreed chemical testing methods used by government, industry and independent laboratories are now available free online.

The Icelandic Health Sector Database was started in 1998 to develop improved methods of achieving better health, and prediction, diagnosis and treatment of disease. Worthwhile goals, yet it was stalled by controversy over the issue of consent. The CARTaGENE project, a proposed 50-year genetic profile of the Quebec population, got started in 1999, and is still awaiting ethics and privacy approval from the government.

It is a century since Marie Curie won two Nobel prizes, one for physics and the other for chemistry. How can more women be encouraged to work in science? A timely question in view of International Women's Day on 8 March.

Letter to the editor: One way OECD countries and others benefit from globalisation is by helping their businesses stay profitable through cost-effective outsourcing, mainly to China and India, and including some knowledge-based activities. In time, these will account for most outsourced work, but as emerging exporters cater to their own domestic markets, the playing field will level out somewhat. Innovation will be important for everyone to stay ahead.

Almost every household in China has a mobile phone. In fact, China is now the world’s largest mobile phone market, both in demand and supply: 303 million mobile phones were produced in China in 2005, exceeding production levels in most OECD countries. However, as this year’s OECD Information Technology Outlook points out, mobile phones are not the only sector of information and communication technology (IT, also known as ICT) where China is making inroads.

Despite the dot.com crash of 2001, growth in broadband has been strong. Indeed, the number of broadband Internet connections in OECD countries has risen from an average of 2.9 subscribers per 100 inhabitants in 2001 to 13.6 per 100 in December 2005.

The OECD has launched a Global Forum on Space Economics to help researchers better analyse the opportunities and challenges facing the space sector and its technology applications. Space affects people’s daily lives more than ever before and is a growing international policy concern. From exploration to communications technology and intelligence, the world increasingly relies on space. There are problems to consider too, such as satellite interference and safety. Yet, the reality of budget constraints make co-operation essential.

Though the dot.com crash of 2001 burst the e-commerce bubble, recent figures show that broadband has remained dynamic. Indeed, growth in the number of broadband Internet connections in OECD countries has risen from an average of 2.9 in 2001 to 13.6 subscribers per 100 inhabitants in December 2005.

All digital highways led to Rome last January, as hundreds of government officials, policy experts and companies descended on the Italian capital for a conference on the future of the digital economy. Jointly hosted by the OECD and the Italian government, the meeting marked a turning point in the digital content debate as several long-simmering concerns emerged as mainstream issues.

Biotechnology and genetics research have been the subject of extensive investment by both the public and private sectors, with a growing impact on healthcare. Advances in medical genetics promise faster, better, diagnosis as well as a new generation of targeted therapies.

The impact of science on society, though a much-discussed question, received special attention in 2005, which to mark the hundredth anniversary of Einstein’s discovery of the Theory of Relativity, has been designated the International Year of Physics.

Anyone driving across different countries will be struck by the different qualities of national road networks. Yet, even the smoothest asphalt requires frequent maintenance, often at great cost in terms of money, traffic disruptions and so on.