Research and innovation ministers agree that innovation cooperation can help tackle global societal challenges
Research and innovation ministers from the G20 group of the largest global economies have agreed on the need for cooperation on open innovation.
Meeting in Manaus, Brazil, on 19 September, the R&I ministers endorsed a strategy to promote such cooperation, as well as a set of recommendations on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in science, technology and innovation.
Open innovation is “a distributed innovation process based on partnership, cooperation and voluntary knowledge flow across organisational boundaries on mutually agreed terms”, the R&I ministers agreed, adding that it has the potential to “unlock the latent economic value of ideas and knowledge”.
Change to business-as-usual model
The ministers agreed, based on the findings of a working group on R&I during Brazil’s current G20 presidency, that open innovation has the potential “to change the business-as-usual model” of innovation, enabling cooperation on challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss.
A strategy on open innovation cooperation should aim to foster knowledge exchange and technology transfer and facilitate the co-design of global and local solutions to challenges, they agreed.
It should be underpinned by principles including transparency, accountability, reproducibility and reciprocity, and it should engage with communities to foster trust.
Diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility
In a similar vein, recommendations on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility endorsed by the ministers call for the tackling of barriers that prevent individuals from contributing to and benefiting from science, technology and innovation.
Specifically, this should include encouraging women and girls to consider careers in science, such as through the provision of scholarships and other incentives.
These recommendations also cover open science and include investing in shared infrastructures and services and facilitating the dissemination of science in all languages.
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