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Sections » Science & technology
  • Combating terrorist financing in the information age

    The explosion of the information world has been a benefit for our organisation, but has raised its own set of new problems.

    (498 words)
  • Knowledge is growth

    The growing awareness that knowledge-based capital (KBC) is driving economic growth is prevalent in today’s global marketplace. KBC includes a broad range of intangible assets, like research, data, software and design skills, which capture or express human ingenuity. The creation and application of knowledge is especially critical to the ability of firms and organisations to develop in a competitive global economy and to create high-wage employment.

    (777 words)
  • Is evidence evident?

    Science and technology play a central role in our society. They are part of everybody’s life, they help to tackle the grand challenges of humankind and they create innovation and jobs and improve quality of life. Science and technology are part of our culture, and in essence define us as a species that “wants to know”–hence why we are called Homo sapiens. But do we really give science its proper value when it comes to taking political decisions?

    (756 words)
  • ©Blogads

    Beyond blogonomics

    In 2002 Henry Copeland, chief of Blogads and Pressflex.com, wrote about how blogs, largely unknown at the time, would change web writing and publishing forever. He was right. Then in 2008 in these pages, he told us to bet on Twitter several months before it took off (the OECD opened its first accounts in April 2009). So where is the information world taking us now? Henry provides some fresh thoughts.

    (645 words)
  • Asia’s information revolution

    The rise of IT and the Internet have been boons to Asia, but not everyone has benefited. There are challenges to overcome, not least in the area of governance.

    (967 words)
  • ©Tim Wimborne/Reuters

    Managing information and communications in a fast-changing world

    People create policy, but underpinning their work, and in some ways hidden from view, is a well-developed, smart information and communications infrastructure. It is a fundamental driver of progress.

    (697 words)
  • ©REUTERS/Valentin Flauraud

    How the world wide web was won

    Did you know that the organisation that brought you the Higgs Boson (“god particle”) also brought you the world wide web? Robert Cailliau, one of its founders, and James Gillies, a first-hand witness, retrace the story.

    (1416 words)
  • ©REUTERS/Felipe Caicedo

    Up in the air?

    Taking as many long-haul flights as possible could hold the answer to your knowledge management problems.

    (638 words)
  • Can big data deliver on its promise?

    Did you know that, according to the UN Global Pulse, more data was created in 2011 than in the whole of human history, or at least, since the invention of the alphabet?

    (532 words)
  • Click to enlarge

    Emerging innovators

    Making strides in scientific innovation is no longer an initiative of just a few select high-income countries. Research and innovation have become increasingly democratised; indeed, Asia’s emerging economies are now gaining prominence as world hubs of scientific research. While the United States remains at the top in terms of the volume of scientific publications produced and collaborations made, these countries are eager to develop their own innovation capabilities, and strengthen their research and academic partnerships.

    (212 words)
  • ©Larry Downing/Reuters

    Policymaking and the information revolution

    The OECD Observer is celebrating its 50th anniversary: no better time than to turn our focus to the currency of information itself.

    (2221 words)
  • Africa.radio

    Though mobile technology is making waves in Africa, airwaves still count.

    (644 words)
  • ©Israelimages/Yakis Kidron

    Start-up nation: An innovation story

    Innovation is a major driver of productivity, economic growth and development. Many OECD countries today are looking to boost productivity through investments in science, technology and R&D. What experience can Israel, new OECD member and the “start-up nation” feted in a recent book by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, bring to the table?

    (1251 words)
  • ©REUTERS/Chris Wattie

    Innovation: Opportunities without frontiers

    Canada is home to some well-known technology companies, but is the country innovative enough? The picture is mixed, with resisting complacency being among the challenges to face.

    (1750 words)
  • Watts up

    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.

    (314 words)
  • Innovation and globalisation

    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.

    (1632 words)
  • ©Korean government

    From Ottawa to Seoul

    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.

    (259 words)
  • The future of the Internet economy

    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.

    (250 words)
  • © ACJA-Fonds Curie & Joliot-Curie

    Wanted: Women scientists

    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?

    (659 words)
  • Click to enlarge.

    For new growth, watch this space

    Fifty-three years after the first satellite was launched on 4 October 1957, space-faring nations have moved from forming a very exclusive club of technologically advanced countries to a large group of states from every continent with a wide diversity of capabilities.

    (383 words)
  • ©Mario Beauregard/Fotolia.com

    Clinical trials for better health policies

    A recent OECD Recommendation on the Governance of Clinical Trials issued in December 2012 could improve the outlook for fighting deadly diseases around the world. Here is how.

    (1416 words)
  • ©Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters

    Untangling intangible assets

    Assets you cannot touch lie behind successful innovations. What are they and how can policy make a difference?

    (1534 words)
  • ©AFP

    Health and IT: Showing the way forward

    That the health of citizens in OECD countries is improving is not in question. How sustainable healthcare systems are, however, is more of an issue. How can information technology help?

    (909 words)
  • Nanomaterials: Getting the measure

    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.

    (1059 words)
  • Innovation: Sensible strategies for sustainable recoveries

    Why is innovation so important for growth and what can governments do to improve it? The OECD has been working on this question for several years and is delivering a comprehensive perspective, the OECD Innovation Strategy, to governments from around the world at the OECD Ministerial Council Meeting on 27-28 May. Here are some highlights.

    (1878 words)
  • Sailing into the future

    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.

    (905 words)
  • Click to enlarge

    Watch the knowledge base

    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.

    (226 words)
  • Twitter time

     "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.

    (341 words)
  • ©Faber

    Innovating a recovery

    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.

    (1296 words)
  • Print online?

    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.

    (475 words)
  • Critical Internet

    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.

    (265 words)
  • ©David Rooney

    The Internet economy: Towards a better future

    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?

    (1447 words)
  • The Seoul agenda

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

    (286 words)
  • ©David Rooney

    Net support

    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?

    (1325 words)
  • ©David Rooney

    Security and the Internet

    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:

    (1025 words)
  • ©David Rooney

    Online identity theft

    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.

    (1271 words)
  • ©David Rooney

    Widening broadband's reach

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

    (1435 words)
  • ©David Rooney

    The next several billion

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

    (1798 words)
  • ©AFP/hemis.fr/Frank Guiziou

    An e-world apart

    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.

    (834 words)
  • ©David Rooney

    Broadband wind rises

    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.

    (278 words)
  • Internet address shortage

    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.

    (488 words)
  • ©Reuters/Kim Kyung Hoon

    Koreans online

    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.

    (428 words)
  • ©David Rooney

    Big screen, little screen

    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.

    (1567 words)
  • A vote for newspapers ©Reuters/Bianchi

    Print screen

    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.

    (785 words)
  • ©David Rooney

    Removing road blocks on the information highway

    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.

    (1383 words)
  • ©Thalys/Zimmermann Media

    Space to grow

    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.

    (705 words)
  • ©David Rooney

    Net potential

    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.

    (1251 words)
  • Online consultation: This Berlin-designed pacemaker relays cardiological data on a daily basis to doctors monitoring the patient via the Internet and can send an SMS text warning when a patient’s heart is in critical condition. ©Reuters/Arnd Wiegmann

    Medicine and the Internet

    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.

    (1354 words)
  • A smaller world?

    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”.

    (1166 words)
  • Henry Copeland ©Blogads

    Internet time

    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.

    (1591 words)
  • ©David Rooney

    Net disillusion

    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.*

    (482 words)
  • E-commerce's mixed results

    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.

    (248 words)
  • ©OECD

    More than meets the ice

    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.

    (349 words)
  • © David Rooney

    Webwatch

    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?

    (522 words)
  • News Brief - March 2008

    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…

    (1933 words)
  • Click here for larger graph ©OECD Observer

    Chinese innovation

    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.

    (1292 words)
  • Science rocks

    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.

    (623 words)
  • Where are tomorrow’s scientists?

    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.

    (305 words)
  • China and India: Making sense of innovation and growth

    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.

    (1483 words)
  • ©Rory Clarke

    Guarding the Net

    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.

    (104 words)
  • Giving knowledge for free

    “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.

    (1557 words)
  • Swivelling numbers around

    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.

    (404 words)
  • Innovation reports

    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?

    (265 words)
  • ©OECD Observer

    Towards an innovation strategy

    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.

    (884 words)
  • Click for bigger image
    Source: NOAA

    Ozone watch

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

    (111 words)
  • ©David Rooney

    Space: More than meets the eye

    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.

    (1746 words)
  • Click here for bigger graph

    Dot.com evolution

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

    (256 words)
  • Click to enlarge

    Environmental satellites

    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.

    (1328 words)
  • Click to read cartoon. By Stik, especially for the OECD Observer

    The future of the Internet

    OECD Observer No 263, October 2007

    (6 words)
  • Open innovation

    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”.

    (394 words)
  • Foreign class

    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.

    (247 words)
  • Grey matters

    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?

    (481 words)
  • Testing chemicals

    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.

    (235 words)
  • Tight genes

    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.

    (371 words)
  • ©ACJA-Fonds Curie & Joliot-Curie

    Wanted: Women scientists

    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.

    (855 words)
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