2.3.2 Core Technologies and Strategic Partnerships
International collaboration in energy R&D involving national governments,
the private sector, and university research communities has been cited as important
in creating energy technology options for the future and facilitating technology
transfer (IEA, 1997, UNEP, 1998; see also Section 4.3,
4.12 and 5.6 on the role of technology
partnerships). A survey of 50 energy research institutions conducted for the
Climate Technology Initiative found that respondents typically conducted less
than 25 per cent of their climate change relevant research under international
collaborative arrangements. Such efforts were focused on the planning and research
stages rather than on development and deployment of technologies, possibly because
governments were the funding source. The study identified a lack of collaboration
between OECD countries and countries in Asia and Africa as a gap worth bridging.
Furthermore, a feasibility study conducted by the Republic of Korea as part
of the work programme of the Commission on Sustainable Development (Chung, 1998
and UNCSD, 1998) notes that there is little coordination of public R&D policies
and ODA policies in most donor governments, and that partnership arrangements
could yield significant results.
Looking beyond the energy sector, UNCTAD (1998) notes that the number of strategic
R&D partnerships in core technologies, such as information technology and
biotechnology, has also been rising steadily since 1990. Developing-country
companies assumed a bigger role in strategic partnerships (three per cent in
1989 to 13 per cent in 1995), suggesting that these companies may have attained
sufficient technological sophistication and capacity to make them worth having
as partners (UNCTAD, 1998). Additionally, the OECD notes that R&D by foreign
affiliates represented more than 12 per cent of total industrial R&D spending
of the 15 OECD countries that account for 95 per cent of industrial R&D
undertaken by Member countries (OECD, 1998b). Most of this, however, occurs
in a few industrial sectors, among them the computer, pharmaceuticals, electronics,
chemicals, and car industries. Parent companies often enter into contracts with
their affiliates to carry out specific research, and vice versa. Public financing
of the R&D of foreign affiliates is minimal in part because "restrictions
remain on foreign participation in government-funded R&D and technology
programmes" (OECD, 1999b).
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