New centre launched to confront the challenge of technology for developing world
29 May 2008
On 29 May 2008 international experts are discussing the role that science and new technologies are playing in emerging world economies at a two-day conference to launch a new research centre at Oxford University. The focus of the conference (29-20 May) is the rising economies in the South, known by economists as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Leading economists from the World Bank and the United Nations will join world-renowned academics, from the developed and developing world, for the launch of the Sanjaya Lall Programme for Technology and Management for Development (SLPTMD). The new Programme is housed in Oxford University’s Department of International Development, and will carry out research into the development of technology and management in the developing world.
Highlights from the conference include:
Does Fast Growth in India and China Harm US Workers?
Ajit Singh, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Economics at Cambridge University, will ask whether fast growth in India and China is harming labour markets in the US and other advanced countries.
Technological catch-up in the BRICS: what lessons can we learn?
Keynote lectures by Augusto Alcorta, from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and William Maloney, lead economist with the World Bank.
BRICS and the world economy
Deepak Nayyar, Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, will examine to what extent China, India, Brazil and South Africa are engines of growth in the world economy.
Anne Miroux, from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), will examine third world multi-nationals and foreign direct investment between developing countries.
Alan Rugman, Professor of Management from Indiana University, US, will examine how less developed countries are managing to integrate into the global economic system.
Foreign technologies in China
Xiaolan Fu, Director of the Sanjaya Lall Programme, Oxford University, and Yundan Gong, from the School of Economics at Nottingham University, will present a study using data from 60,000 firms from across China (2000-2005), to suggest that there is a real catch-up by the indigenous Chinese firms and this growth is likely to be sustainable from the technological perspective.
The Programme is named after Sanjaya Lall, who was Professor in Development Economics at Oxford University from 1999 until his death in 2005. Originally from India, Professor Lall developed a worldwide reputation for his work, which focused particularly on the needs of developing countries in a multinational market.
One of the projects that the Programme is currently working on aims to improve rural e-services in India. In July, a research team will travel to Sironj, Madhya Pradesh, to implement a scheme to provide computer and mobile phone technologies for up to 500 farmers in the area. The project will be a test-bed for other schemes that could be rolled out in SE Asia and Africa.
The Director of the Sanjaya Lall Programme, Dr Xiaolan Fu, said: ‘ The Programme aims to advance Professor Sanjaya Lall’s pioneering research on technology and industrialisation in developing countries. We will also develop cutting-edge research on the managerial capabilities needed to compete in the globalising world and address the role of technology in meeting the challenges associated with climate change and sustainable development.’
For the full conference programme and to arrange interviews, please contact the University of Oxford Press Office on 01865 280534 or email press.office@admin.ox.ac.uk. Media who wish to attend the conference should register their interest with the Press Office.