A Comparative Study of the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy between Taiwan and EU Major Countries

94

Science and technology has long been growth engine for national wealth and economic wellbeing. The nature of modern economic growth is characterized as long-term technological progress and a continuous process of wealth creation. In the fast changing environment of international cooperation and competition, almost all the country in the world are looking for or expanding the market opportunities through properly designed science and technology policy as well as innovation policy (STI policy henceforth). So are national development and quality of life as targeted as policy goals for every country. Since a nation is not making policy alone in the global village, national policy may face certain need of adaptation with cooperative or competitive counterpart, internally or externally. This research focuses on evaluating STI policy in selected countries including the biggest four countries of European Union (EU) – United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Italy – and Taiwan. The purpose is to observe how these EU-Big4 countries improve their STI policy in coordinating national science and technology resources and at the same time maintaining their competitive position respectively. An alternative Triple-Helix approach is constructed as the analytical framework while four dimensions of STI policy are examined across countries in concerns. The idea about the Triple-Helix in this thesis is the “Market-Institution-Technology” paradigm, which highlights the characteristics of policy structure in specific or overall economy. The framework is then applied to investigate on the changing innovation structure of Taiwan. In examining on the following four dimensions: Human Resource; e-Infrastructure; Law and Regulations; Public-Private Partnership due to the concerned States, the key policy elements are thus arranged with respect to their STI Policies. While benchmarking the EU-Big4 Member States, the results are contrasted to those opportunities and challenges of STI policy innovation for Taiwan. The resulting analysis suggests a reformulating and innovating thinking for the revival of STI Policy mechanism in Taiwan and to the newly emerging economies. In specific, educational system may be the most important policy to build up and expanding human resources. On the other hand, they are less weak in encouraging industry to join and invest on R&D activities. This may further weaken the link between technology and the market. And, it might be the most important reason why the EU as a whole posit behind the US and Japan in S&T competitiveness. It is suggested that for catching up economies as Taiwan, some of the lessons are of valuable. (1) The government should clearly define itself as one in the National Innovation System; (2) to promote the R&D investment in the private sector, incentive mechanism is more important and PPP cooperation may be well utilized to promote the upgrade of the private R&D level; (3) enhancing international cooperation to upgrade the ability in basic research and; (4) the experience of policy research seems waiting to be improved. In this sense, scholarly exchange may be suggested.