About this event
China and India are definitely on a higher economic growth path, although the contribution of technology to economic growth is still not very clearly estimated. There is evidence to show that innovative activities in the industrial sector in both the countries have shown some significant increases during the post reform process. Knowledge content of both domestic output and exports are increasing in both the countries. Increasingly many of the innovative activities are contributed by multinational companies (MNCs), indicating that both China and India have become important locations for innovative activities. There is even some macro evidence to suggest that the productivity of R&D investments in India is higher than in China. A continued rise in innovative activity is limited by the availability of finance and of good quality scientists and engineers. Fortunately the governments in both the countries are aware of this problem and have started initiating a number of steps towards increasing the supply of technically trained personnel. However, both governments still have to rethink their relative financial support schemes by reducing as much as possible the distortions that are currently in this area.
Dr. Sunil Mani is Planning Commission Chair Professor in Development Economics at the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, India. Dr. Mani's research focus is on innovation, particularly among developing countries. His current research focuses on new indicators and innovation surveys; standards and technological capability at the firm level for use in innovation policy instruments; and sectoral systems of innovation.
Dr. Mani has published extensively in his area of specialisation. He has held faculty appointments in many institutions throughout the world, including as a faculty member at the United Nations University-Institute for New Technologies (now known as UNU-MERIT) at Maastricht in the Netherlands; and as a visiting faculty member at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Research Policy (Elsevier), and the International Journal of Technology and Globalization (Inderscience). Dr. Mani obtained his M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and has done postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford. His most recent work is a new book entitled Sectoral Systems of Innovation and Production in Developing Countries: Actors, Structure and Evolution (Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, USA: Edward Elgar) and in 2010 he edited a special issue of the International Journal of Technology and Globalization on the Rise of Innovations in India.