KINGSTON, Jamaica – The Opposition People’s National Party says it supports Dr Henry Lowe’s call for the establishment of a fund for science and technology.

Opposition Spokesman on Information and the Knowledge Economy Julian Robinson, in a news release Friday, pointed to his contribution to the Sectoral Debate on June 28, 2016, entitled “Building a knowledge based economy”, and the recommendations he had made on how such a fund could operate.

Dr Lowe, a Jamaican scientist who on Monday copped the Local Innovator Award presented by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) at its 19th Forum for Markets Innovation and Capital (FOROMIC) in Montego Bay, called for the establishment of a Science and Technology Innovation Fund.

Dr Lowe made the suggestion against the background of his own experience of heavy investment in the research in which he and his team are engaged.

“While we were in Government, we begun initial thinking on the concept of such a fund but were not able to advance it to the stage of implementation,” Robinson said. “I am willing to be part of a process to move this forward.”

See the extract from his sectoral presentation

See an extract from Robinson’s Sectoral Debate Presentation below:

One of the elements of a knowledge economy that we are currently missing is a properly stimulated research environment. Generally speaking, there are two types of research: basic and applied. Basic research seeks to understand fundamental principles and how to parameterise them within potential applications. Applied research focuses on trying to solve real-world problem by applying the knowledge gained from past basic research.

Research (whether basic or applied) is an effective way for a Government fund to be applied, because it is an area that the private sector is typically unwilling to invest in (because the outcomes are not guaranteed, and do not yield an marketable product directly). Such activity is important to stimulate though, because it attracts bright young minds to focus on technical areas and push their frontiers, which then creates a population that becomes fertile ground for technical innovation, technical training in support areas, and increases the confidence of investors who might consider setting up technical enterprises here.

Another critical aspect of a fund earmarked for research is that the custodians of that fund get to decide which research directions to stimulate. Since it is likely that the government funds will be relatively small, it might be ideal if government could encourage private sector consortia to establish research funds of their own to push research agenda that are aligned with their own economic interests (so those would likely be applied research). This would then leave the government to focus their limited funds on the longer term problems that can be addressed by research (basic research).

In all cases, the process of accessing such funds should be a competitive one. The funding agency would put out, at regular intervals (e.g. every 1, 2 or even 3 years) announcements of the kinds of problems that they would like to see addressed. Respondents would propose research projects that would try to answer that call, and funding would be given to the proposals that best fit the mandate of the fund. (Basic research seeks answers that will push the boundaries of the area, while applied research seeks proof-of-concept answers that can then be taken to the development stage to become a product or service). Basic research problems will be longer term problems that tend to be more open-ended, while applied research problems tend to be more focused, be susceptible to a changing environment, and therefore have a shorter timeline.