The international governance of
knowledge policies: a survey
Joint work of the Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture
(University of Oslo) and of the Research Centre for International
Economics (University of Rome “Sapienza”)
Edited by
Helge Hveem (University of Oslo)
P. Lelio Iapadre (University of L’Aquila, Johns Hopkins University –
Bologna Center, and UNU-CRIS, Bruges)
Presentation for the 4th GARNET Annual Conference
Rome, 12 November 2009
Motivation and objectives
Market and non-market channels of knowledge
creation and diffusion are influenced by regulatory
institutions at the national and international –
bilateral, regional or multilateral - level.
 The survey aims at
 identifying the main international institutional
structures that regulate the flows of domestic
knowledge accumulation and its diffusion among
countries,
 providing a description of their characteristics, their
similarities and their contrasts,
 assessing the functionality of the multi-level
international governance of knowledge policies.

Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
Introduction
Conceptual overview
a.
b.
The international governance of knowledge activities (Helge Hveem)
Knowledge accumulation and international knowledge transfers (Luca
Spinesi)
Knowledge accumulation processes
a.
b.
c.
Education (Carl Henrik Knutsen)
Research (Carl Henrik Knutsen)
Innovation (Cristina Castelli)
a.
b.
Open flow of ideas (Carl Henrik Knutsen)
Co-operation on knowledge activities (Helge Hveem and Carl Henrik
Knutsen)
Migration (Cristina Castelli and Lelio Iapadre)
Foreign direct investment (Luca de Benedictis and Luca Spinesi)
Trade in goods and services (Cristina Castelli)
International knowledge diffusion processes
c.
d.
e.
Outline of survey chapters
 Concepts and definitions
 Overview of relevant national policies
 International institutions
 bilateral
 regional
 multilateral
 Governance of the system: the
interplay between different
jurisdictional levels
 Conclusions.
Education
 Focus on higher education
 International integration in higher education


Mobility of students and teachers
Foreign affiliates of universities and provision of on-line
courses
 Regulatory convergence promoted by international
institutions


Diffusion of best practices (peer review and country
rankings)
International standards on quality assurance and
accreditation systems



Improving national systems
Facilitating international mobility of students and workers
Possible enforcement problems
Education
 Perceived trade-off between national
policies and international integration
 National policies
 Education, growth, and societal progress
 Protecting cultural identities
 Attracting foreign students and hindering “brain
drain”
 International integration policies
 Bilateral or regional preferential agreements
 Non-discriminatory trade and FDI liberalisation in
the WTO context
 Other multilateral cooperation initiatives, such as
the OECD-UNESCO Guidelines for Quality
Provision in Cross-border Higher Education
Education
 International governance: the
prospects
 Increasing international integration
 Problems of WTO negotiations
 The role of regional integration
 The Bologna process model
 An alternative to WTO integration?
 Competition among different regional systems
 Facilitation of multilateral negotiations
Research
 International cooperation in the
global research community
 The role of international institutions
in producing comparable data and
analysis
 Statistics as a global public good
 Statistics, knowledge and policies: the
Global Project on Measuring the
Progress of Societies
Research
 The role of intellectual property protection
 Intellectual property protection is more relevant
for business innovation than for basic research,
which relies on free access to existing
knowledge
 The distinction between research and innovation
is blurred
 National and international institutions protecting
intellectual property can affect basic research
 A possible trade-off between public expenditure
and intellectual property protection in the
finance of research
Research
 International governance: the prospects
 Multilateral coordination of intellectual property
policies could be beneficial, provided that
national differences are duly taken into account
 Spontaneous cooperation among national and
regional authorities is already occurring
 Regional integration can help, provided that
regional organisations succeed in coordinating
their own members
 National regulatory approaches remain different
(e.g.: patents on basic research)
Innovation
 National policies
 Subsidies and other measures aimed at
supporting business investment in
innovation
 Regulations shaping the context in which
firms undertake innovation: the intellectual
property regime
 The role of international institutions
 Constraining the competition among
national support measures
 Facilitating regulatory cooperation
Innovation
 A stronger international regime of intellectual
property?
 Expected benefits
 Promoting investment in innovative activities
 Creating a market for knowledge transfers
 Keeping pace with the increasingly global scope of
business activities
 Expected costs
 Excessive monopoly power granted to protected firms
 Increased costs of sequential innovation in new
technology fields
 Distributive problems within and across countries
Innovation
 Differences in national policies
 Range and intensity of subsidies and support
measures
 Choice of intellectual property protection tools
 Patents vs. trade secrets
 Copyrights or plant breeders’ rights vs. patents
 Substantive requirements for patents
(patentable subject matter, novelty, inventive
step, industrial applicability)
 Procedural aspects (term for disclosing
information; criteria to establish who is the first
to invent)
Innovation
 Regional integration
 The EU model
 Harmonisation of procedural and
substantive aspects of national regulations
 Regional offices administering a bundle of
national rights
 Multilateral integration
 Limitations to trade-distorting subsidies to
innovation
 Harmonization of intellectual property
protection (TRIPs)
Innovation
 International governance: the prospects
 The national “policy space” left by multilateral
institutions is being eroded by bilateral
agreements
 Multilateral harmonisation of procedures can
favour market integration by reducing
transaction costs
 Harmonisation of substantive rules could lead to
neglect differences in development needs
 Regional integration among countries at similar
levels of development could be a better option
 The surveillance role of multilateral institutions
(WIPO and WTO) remains fundamental
Open flow of ideas
 Knowledge as a public good
 Barriers to the free circulation of
knowledge across countries are
stronger than domestically
 International institutions can help
reducing these barriers
 Crucial role of the communication
system
Open flow of ideas
 International governance: the prospects
 Bilateral and regional cooperation is well
developed
 The multilateral level is the most
appropriate to agree and implement
communication standards
 Facilitate ex-ante cooperation among national
authorities, preventing the risk that
incompatible standards are involuntarily chosen
 Allow mutually beneficial negotiations when
national preferences about standards differ,
preventing the risk that network externalities
lead to the adoption of inefficient solutions
International cooperation in
knowledge activities
 Cooperation among research and
innovation agents generates beneficial
externalities and favours incremental
innovation
 Local innovation systems are based on
spatial proximity among their actors,
but develop intense international
linkages
 Focus on knowledge transfers between
research centres and firms
International cooperation in
knowledge activities
 International governance: the prospects
 National and international institutions can
favour cooperation among knowledge
producers
 Checking the abuse of dominant positions in
knowledge cooperation networks
 The subsidiarity principle suggests the
priority of bilateral and regional institutions
 In future, the optimal allocation of
competences could change in favour of the
multilateral level, as a response to the
increasingly global scope of knowledge
cooperation networks
Migration
 International mobility of people as
a channel of knowledge diffusion
 “Brain drain” vs. “Brain gain”
 A fragmented system of
uncoordinated national policies
 Weak international institutions
Migration
 International governance: the
prospects
 National policies face increasing
problems in controlling migration flows
 Progress at the multilateral level is
unlikely
 Bilateral and regional institutions can be
used to experiment forms of deeper
integration
Foreign Direct Investment
 FDI is widely considered as an important
channel of knowledge diffusion
 Its effects depend also on the absorption
capacity of host economies
 Competition regime
 Quality of local skills
 With the partial exception of the GATS, the
multilateral regime of FDI is very weak
 Home countries fear losses in employment
 Host countries fear constraints in national
industrial policies
Foreign Direct Investment
 International governance: the prospects
 Notwithstanding the political rhetoric against
foreign multinationals, countries compete in
attracting FDI
 Proliferation of bilateral investment treaties:
investor protection in exchange for capital
inflows, without multilateral constraints
 Fragmentation of the international regime
and discrimination across countries
 In future, the GATS model could be
extended to other sectors
Trade in goods and services
 Trade can be a channel of knowledge
diffusion
 Reverse engineering on imported goods
 Producer-consumer interaction in services
trade
 International production networks
 Relevant national policies
 Export promotion
 Import liberalisation, unilateral or in the
context of integration agreements
Trade in goods and services
 International governance: the prospects
 Preferential trade agreements can lead to a
fragmentation of the trading system
 But sometimes represent useful experiments of
deeper integration





Rules of origin
Trade-related investment measures
Technical standards
E-commerce
Services
 Their compatibility with the multilateral regime
remains an important unresolved issue
Some concluding questions
 The case for an international regulation
of knowledge-related activities
 Can knowledge be considered as a global public
good?
 The case for international co-operation in
knowledge policies
 Spill-overs: the external dimension of national
knowledge policies
 Removing cultural barriers to international economic
integration
 International integration, knowledge diffusion, and
societal progress
 Possible counter-arguments: applying the
subsidiarity principle to knowledge policies
Some concluding questions
 The role of regional and
multilateral institutions
 The geographic scope of international cooperation in knowledge activities
 Is regional co-operation more effective
than multilateral co-operation in
promoting knowledge creation and
diffusion?
 Can regional integration hinder the
global governance of knowledge
activities?
Some concluding questions
 Improving the trade-off between
knowledge creation and diffusion at
the international level
 If flexibility is required in knowledge
policies, is this true both ways?
 poor countries could be allowed to adopt
standards which are appropriate to their
development needs
 rich countries could be allowed to experiment
forms of deeper integration
 Are open plurilateral agreements, e.g. on
FDI, better than a network of hegemonic
bilateral agreements?