NEW CHALLENGES FOR INNOVATION POLICIES IN THE GLOBAL “LEARNING ECONOMY”. ROLE OF UNIVERSITIES AND HIGHER EDUCATION CENTRES IN THE CREATION OF THE KNOWLEDGE BASED SOCIETY UNDER THE LISBON STRATEGY

摘要

Nowadays, the development of telecommunication and information technologies (TICs) is driving us to a process of transformation in economic performance, in shaping institutions and in the definition of economic policy. The knowledge based economy brings new challenges for business. Markets are becoming more global, product cycles are shortening, customers are more demanding and the complexity of technology is increasing. Knowledge can be tacit or codified. Tacit knowledge is transferred only through social interaction. In this sense, proximity and confidence become necessary conditions for learning. Learning economy is the new approach to define a more global and systemic policy of innovation that considers not only technology but also interaction with industrial policy, research policy or science policies. Learning economy tries to overcome social, cooperative and interactive dimension of knowledge, this is to say, social capital. Social capital includes those elements of social organisation that facilitate coordination and cooperation and for this reason, accelerate information transfer and knowledge development. Social capital makes it possible interaction inside firms, between networks of firms and cooperation throughout the institutional environment. As a result, social capital improves capacities to acquire information, to incorporate new information to economic processes and to manage these processes to allow innovation. A new policy of innovation should include apart from economic aspects, institutional, organisational and cultural elements as well, to facilitate and to foster learning. Information is no longer useful unless it is transformed into knowledge through learning. At the same time, learning goes further than traditional education and training programmes. Learning requires institutions and enterprises to play an active role in helping economic actors to develop new abilities and build up innovation capabilities. Knowledge must be exchanged, assimilated and transferred to detect opportunities of innovation. What is more important, is the use and exploitation of all types of knowledge. In this sense, academic centres, education and research centres and universities have a great role to play for transferring and generating knowledge, for assisting firms in innovation and for interacting with other institutions. An increasing global and knowledge based economy requires in the context of Lisbon Strategy, the modernisation of universities and higher education institutions to create a “European Research Area” where research, education, training and innovation are mobilized to create growth and employment. In this sense, science policy is a key asset in the global innovation policy. For this reason, the aims of these A^ are the following: First, to analyse the new approach in terms of the “learning economy” to help to define the new innovation policy and in the second place, to study the role of the science policy for the creation of the European Research Area.