This small, high-level workshop, organised by the HC Coombs Policy Forum at the ANU, discussed the relative strengths and weaknesses of current and likely future US and European science and innovation policy stances, along with lessons and implications for Australia.

Professor Christopher T. Hill, Professor of Public Policy and Technology, School of Public Policy, George Mason University, USA

Christopher T. Hill has devoted more than three decades of his professional career to science and technology policy. He has held senior positions at the RAND Corporation, the National Academies, the Congressional Research Service, MIT and the Office of Technology Assessment. His extensive consulting includes work over the last decade with Japanese government agencies regarding reform of Japan’s national R&D, higher education, and human resource development systems. He is a co-editor and contributor to Technological Innovation for a Dynamic Economy and is currently writing a book with the working title, ‘All Proper Means: Foundations of U.S. Technology Policy.’

Dr Sylvia Schwaag-Serger, Director, International Collaboration and Networks, Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA) and Senior Research Fellow, Research Policy Institute, University of Lund, Sweden

Dr Schwaag-Serger holds a PhD in economic history from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a Masters Degree in International Relations from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University (SAIS).

From 2005-2007 Dr Schwaag-Serger was Counselor (Science and Technology) at the Embassy of Sweden’s Science Office in Beijing, where she analysed China’s innovation system and policy. She has published several papers on China’s economic and scientific development and its implications for the rest of the world. She has advised Swedish ministries and agencies on various China-related issues and has been commissioned by the European Commission as a China expert in a number of projects.

During her career Dr Schwaag-Serger has held the following positions: in 2004 she was Acting Director at IKED, an independent international non-profit organisation focusing on the emerging issues of the knowledge-based economy. Among other things, she led a number of country policy reviews and programs; from 1997-1999 she worked at the Ministry of Industry and Trade in Stockholm, where she analysed and devised strategies for improving Sweden’s innovation policy; from 1999-2002 Dr Schwaag-Serger was senior researcher at the Swedish Institute for Food and Agricultural Economics (SLI), analysing decision-making in the European Union.