Innovation and Technology Policy

Policy, science, and innovation policy indicators are important to provide the information needed to support evidence-based policy, as well as to provide effective monitoring and evaluation capabilities for policies. Also, due to the great complexity of the system of science, technology and innovation, designing a comprehensive model for policy-making in this area is one of the major concerns of policy makers and decision makers. The main purpose of this study is to design a linking model between the factors affecting the appropriate policy-making of the phenomenon of science, technology and innovation, as well as how the factors affect. By comprehensively reviewing the research background, a conceptual framework was extracted from the effective and shaping factors of science, technology and innovation policy. The current status and importance of these factors were questioned using a 56-item questionnaire. Using the data obtained from the questionnaire and SPSS software, Pearson simple correlation matrix was extracted and used as input of FCMapper software. Then, by entering the output of FCMapper software in Pajek software, a fuzzy cognitive map is drawn. According to the obtained results, the employment factor in the field of policy-making was identified as the most important factor among other factors. Finally, the most important forward and backward scenarios for science, technology and innovation policy-making in the science and technology corridor of Yazd province are examined.

The benefits of autonomous vehicles (AVs) are widely acknowledged, but there are concerns about the extent of these benefits and AV risks and unintended consequences. In this article, we first examine AVs and different categories of the technological risks associated with them. We then explore strategies that can be adopted to address these risks, and explore emerging responses by governments for addressing AV risks. Our analyses reveal that, thus far, governments have in most instances avoided stringent measures in order to promote AV developments and the majority of responses are non-binding and focus on creating councils or working groups to better explore AV implications. The US has been active in introducing legislations to address issues related to privacy and cybersecurity. The UK and Germany, in particular, have enacted laws to address liability issues; other countries mostly acknowledge these issues, but have yet to implement specific strategies. To address privacy and cybersecurity risks strategies ranging from introduction or amendment of non-AV specific legislation to creating working groups have been adopted. Much less attention has been paid to issues such as environmental and employment risks, although a few governments have begun programmes to retrain workers who might be negatively affected.

Most of the papers in this special issue were presented at the Third International Seville Conference on Future-Oriented Technology Analysis (FTA) that took place in October 2008. They address a wide variety of issues in FTA including methods and policy and governance impacts with discussions and demonstrations at the regional and corporate levels.