Ignoring the distinction between science policy and technology policy
Response of Dr. Roger Posadas to Dr. Flor Lacanilao’s posting (July 27, 2011):
Hi Flor,
Well, here you go again shooting off your mouth with your criticism of P-Noy’s Science Policy and showing your illiteracy about S&T policies, the R&D and innovation processes, and industrial and technological catch-up.
In your previous commentaries, you had been calling for “literate scientists” or what you defined to be “those who know not only research but also how it leads to development (R&D) and who do something about it.” I presume that you consider yourself a “literate scientist.” However, while I might concede that you know how to do research properly and how to publish research results in SCI-indexed journals, I strongly doubt whether you know anything about the “D” part of R&D—the process that that is concerned with taking an invention (the output of applied research), developing it into prototypes, testing these for marketability and manufacturability, and preparing a business plan for its commercialization. I also question your knowledge regarding the interconnections between research, innovation, competitiveness, and national development. My strong skepticism about your literacy regarding matters of S&T, S&T Policies, and National Development is based on your flawed and naive notions about S&T and development.
First, in criticizing P-Noy’s* science policy, you betray an ignorance of the distinction between science policy and technology policy. Science policy refers to government measures on how to develop scientific research and science resources, while technology policy has to do with government decisions on the choice of technologies, the methods of acquiring technologies, technology strategies and technology roadmaps. Obviously, P-Noy’s praise of Sec. Montejo’s technology initiatives like the monorail is an attempt to enunciate an incipient national technology policy, which I hope will develop into a policy geared towards technological self-reliance and cluster-based industrialization. Just like what America, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Israel, China, and India had done successfully in order to catch up economically, the Philippines must pursue technological self-reliance and catch-up by creating the industrial clusters where we can start producing our own trains, buses, electric cars, power plants, ships, airplanes, helicopters, rockets, tanks, submarines, robots, medicines, etc. So why should scientists feel insulted when P-Noy expresses an incipient technology policy of self-reliance?
You point out, more or less correctly, that our country was next to Japan some 50 years ago and that today we have been “left behind by no less than 12 Asian countries.” But obviously, you have not studied exhaustively—as I have done—how these Asian counties were able to overtake us and even catch up with the advanced countries. For, contrary to your historically false “Science Push” development formula that “scientific research is a prerequisite to technological development,” these countries (South Korea, Taiwan, China, India, Malaysia, Israel) first pursued and attained technological catch-up and self-reliance in selected technologies before pursuing scientific catch-up in terms of scientific paper production. Even the US and Japan followed this formula. The US first attained industrial and technological power before achieving scientific power status. It started becoming a scientific powerhouse only after World War II. Same with Japan, which first built up its industrial and technological capabilities with the help of a huge engineering manpower base before attempting to catch-up in scientific research. Technological catch-up can certainly be done without basic scientific research, because all you need to do is reverse engineer an imported product and then do creative engineering redesign to improve the design of the imported product.
As pointed out by the Korean technology management scholar, Linsu Kim, in 1993: “R&D in the formal sense of the term was not important for Korea during this stage of imitating mature technologies. Industries in fact reversed the sequence of R&D&E: it started with engineering (E) for products and processes imported from abroad, and then progressively evolved into the position of undertaking a substantial development (D). But research (R) was not relevant to Korea’s industrialization through the 1970s.” (Linsu Kim, “National System of Industrial Innovation: Dynamics of Capability Building in Korea,” in Nelson, Richard (ed), National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 357-383)
If you don’t believe me, I can lend you the following books on South Korea’s industrial and technological catch-up for your enlightenment: Alice Amsden, Asia's Next Giant; South Korea and Late Industrialization (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1989) and Linsu Kim, Imitation to Innovation: The Dynamics of Korea’s Technological Learning (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1997).
This technological catch-up formula of reverse engineering followed by creative engineering redesign to achieve technological self-reliance has been historically validated again and again in Taiwan, China, Malaysia, India, Brazil, Israel, and other newly industrializing countries. The reason why we have been left behind is not because of our poor research productivity but because our political and business leaders have been brainwashed by mainstream economists into upholding the theory of comparative advantage, which says that Filipinos should just import and use advanced equipment and technologies instead of trying to produce our own advanced equipment and technologies.
Ed Padlan, therefore, is partially correct when he said that the Philippines should have more engineers running the government, for it’s a historical fact that most of those who engineered the successful catch-up of the newly industrializing countries were engineers who practiced catch-up technology management and threw away the theory of comparative advantage taught in schools of economics. I said I partially agree because what those successful countries really had plenty of and what we badly need right now are technology managers, whether they come from engineering, science, business, and other backgrounds. Technology managers are persons who are knowledgeable and competent in identifying, forecasting, selecting, acquiring, creating, developing, transferring, commercializing, and deploying technologies for the defensible and sustainable competitive advantage of a firm or a nation.
So if you want to be a “literate scientist,” as you defined it, you should study technology management and stop pretending you know anything about Science, Technology, and Innovation Policies and National Development, for you only end up displaying your scientific chauvinism, hubris, and simple-minded naiveté on these matters. And please stop quoting American basic scientists who know next to nothing about S&T and national development in developing countries.
Roger
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*Self-given monicker of Philippine President Benigno Aquino III
ABOUT DR. POSADAS:
Dr. Roger Posadas, PhD, is one of the eminent physicists of the Philippines. He started his career in the academe as a professor of physics at the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman, Quezon City. He served for 10 years as the first dean of UP Diliman’s College of Science and as chancellor of UP Diliman, and is currently a professor at its Technology Management Center.