Definition of innovation policies

Some recommendations on innovation policy by Thierry Gaudin Thierry Gaudin is graduated from french Polytechnique and Paris School of Mines. He has also a PhD in information and communication sciences. He has been for ten years in charge of building an innovation policy for France. He is one of the founders of the Six countries program on innovation policy. He then specialised in foresight, working for OECD, European Commission, World Bank and different firms and organisations. Why innovation policy ? Most innovation policies have been built considering that the rate of change or the speed of adaptation of the economic system being too slow compared to foreign examples, some incentives had to be implemented that would help the entrepreneurs to speed up their developments and face successfully international competition. Such an attitude demonstrates the good will of the politicians, and this demonstration speeds up their popularity. But pouring money into the system is not enough to solve the real question, namely: why is the change too slow, and is it really? What are the measurements available? What do we know about this innovation process? And above all, what are the obstacles the innovators are facing? Looking at recent history, the document that raised innovation policy as a political issue is the “Charpie report” delivered in 1967 to the department of commerce in United States. Looking backwards, this report, which advocates the “small business” ideology, appears as a paradox. At that time, innovation was flourishing in US. The microprocessor was about to be marketed, initiating a worldwide revolution in communication and computing, and a variety of devices in electronics, censors, robotics, many of them developed under military contracts, were about to be spread out in the whole technical system. Anyhow, the “small business ideology” is deeply rooted in the US way of thinking, the American dream inherited from the time of the pioneers. The individual entrepreneur is viewed as a potential hero, and any big organization, public or private, is suspected to hide somewhere a bureaucratic monster ready to abuse its power and even to kill all sorts of individual initiatives. One important event in American history is the vote of the anti-trust laws (the Sherman act) motivated by the abusive monopoly of Rockefeller on fuel production and distribution. Afterwards, and in line with the same ideology, was voted the “Small business act” that obliged public procurements to address a minimal proportion of small firms in their contracts. Clearly, this ideology is typically American, for historical and cultural reasons. It is not present in most other civilizations. Anyhow, it advocates interesting statements that may be considered as valid worldwide. For instance, it says: “every big firm started being small. Because it was innovative, it grew big. But this does not imply it is still innovative now, when it is big. Growing big means getting heavier, generating rituals and territories, searching for monopolistic situations, adopting progressively bureaucratic behaviours.” Looking back at the time of the Charpie report, a typical innovation process could be described as follows (names have been changed): A researcher at MIT, busy studying infrared propagation, receives a phone call from one of his classmates, now working at the Pentagon: “John, we need a device to see the enemy by night, and even through the leaves of the jungle. I know you are the only one able to do it. Come and see me, we will sign a contract. No limits to the amount” John answers: “Keep quiet Alan, let me do my job. I don’t need your contract and I am not interested in military, find someone else”. But Alan insisted so much that John decided another move to discourage him. He went to the Pentagon with a bill so high that he thought even the military could not afford. But Alan signed the check immediately. John had to create his company: “don’t worry, Gen Doriot will find you some venture capital for that” said Alan. The first time, says John, I went back to explain the cost would be multiplied by three, I was ashamed. The third time, I was used to it. The development became operational, but John had now to manage a company, IRed-tech, and he knew the Pentagon had no other contract for him. Thus, he looked for diversification. And he found that his thermal imaging technology could serve many other purposes: detection of breast cancers, analysis of heat losses of poorly isolated buildings for instance. His company grew and became leader. This story, based on real facts, helps to share the reality from the legend. the public procurements, mostly military and space, gave the basic support that allowed the start up and learning phase to proceed. It has been the case around Boston and MIT (route 128) and also, later, in Silicon Valley and Stanford University Both cases have been studied in detail by Arthur D Little and Stanford Research Institute. these contracts were not followed by others. The new company had to find other markets to the acquired know how. everyone (the researcher becoming entrepreneur, the venture capitalist and the procurement manager) experienced a learning process that, later, allowed developments without the support from the taxpayer’s money. Two other worldwide known companies illustrate the vitality of this entrepreneurship Californian innovative climate: both were created by students bursting out the ideas of their thesis. One is Nike, the other is Google. These typical “success stories” illustrate the American dream. But in analysing the reality of the developments of silicon valley, one must leave aside the legend and remind the facts: the learning process that made these developments possible has been widely supported by public money, more precisely public procurements demanding new technological performances. As a first statement, let us recommend an enlargement of the vision. A single innovation, even several innovations appear as the visible part of an iceberg. The maturation of an innovative climate involves many actors and takes time. The basic accounting unit may be around ten years. Innovation is basically a social phenomenon that appears when surrounded by a receptive climate. The idea itself (which is in most cases an association of ideas) is formulated through the expectation of a positive listening. For this reason innovation policy may be described as “listening silences”. At this level all sorts of innovations follow similar processes. Artistic innovations, like were the impressionists or the surrealists; scientific innovations, like the transformation of physics through relativity and wave mechanics, were also the result of the maturation of communities sharing the same questions and the same doubts and also speaking the same language. But generating an innovative climate from nothing is definitely a difficult task. It has been tried in Europe, in China, in India, in Brazil for instance. A lot of analytical work has been done: the innovation policies assessments of OECD and World Bank and the studies presented at the six countries program on innovation policies, created informally in 1975 and still working in 2009 (http://6CP.net). In the following pages, we will try to summarize the most useful statements out of these works. But let us first have a look at the basics. Biological aspects of innovation to keep in mind Let us first advocate a surprising statement: there is no indisputable way to define innovation. Of course, many events are widely considered as innovations, and easily reach consensus as being innovations. It would be the case, for instance, of the launch into the market of the first hybrid car, the Toyota “Prius”. But between this big an impressive jump in technology and the ordinary renewal practiced by all car manufacturers, where is the frontier defining innovation? No one can say, because the difference lies in intensity, not in nature. Then, why do we use this word, innovation? Could it be replaced by another one: evolution for instance? Clearly, the Darwinian “evolution” concept helps to understand what is at stake, because technical devices are external organs of the human body. They often look like animals organs. They are generated by evolution process. The same process governs organic evolution through the whole biosphere. But evolution proceeds either by small steps of continuous adaptation or, particularly in case of stress, by jumps, attempts to overcome a difficult situation operated by a minority. These could be called innovations. They take place at all levels, even the smallest, the level of the bacteria. When looking at knowledge theory, Thomas Kuhn’s work stresses disruptions in the evolution of scientific thinking. These disruptions, exemplified by the transition from classical Newtonian mechanics to the relativist approach at the beginning of 20th century, are currently known as “paradigm shifts”. According to Kuhn’s views, a paradigm implies much more than a single idea, or even a law of nature. It is a system providing an approach, a way to read a whole range of natural phenomenon. Therefore, a shift, the replacement of an old paradigm by a new one may be called an innovation because of its systemic effects on thinking. Another approach, coming from the mental research institute (MRI) of Palo Alto created by Gregory Bateson. See “The language of change” by Paul Watzlawick., shows a similar pattern in daily life. According to its experience in family therapy, the MRI observes current behaviour is governed by a set of routines. These reading of ordinary events initialize readymade programs generating pre-determined reactions. But, from time to time, the sequence faces an obstacle (for instance a “double bind” situation as quoted by Bateson). The result is a stress, until a new and more adequate interpretation is found that overcomes the difficulty. The MRI calls that evolution a “level 2” change. Obviously, according to our approach, it can be called innovation. In order to provide a deeper understanding of the concept, let us have a quick look at the process generating mental representations in our nervous system. A newly born baby is unable to make a difference between himself and any object placed in front of him. To initialize his recognition process an enormous amount of automated work is necessary. The brain of the newborn is permanently active building linkages between his different sources of perception, from inside (the movements of his body) and from outside (the images detected by his eyes, the sounds by his ears, the touch by his skin…). The recognition process is achieved when he anticipates the change in perception caused by the movement of his body. As the brain is constantly moving, we can imagine anticipative circuits as representations of external objects. Therefore, “level 2” change would represent the stress necessary to built a new circuit, the existing ones being out of scope. With all these elements, we get closer to the concept of innovation. What makes an innovation is not the device in itself, but the shift it generates in the perception of reality. And this is valid as well at the individual level as at the collective level. Innovation is relative. It is relative to a context and to a vision of the world. Let us take an example: after WW2, the universities teaching pharmacy left aside the traditional knowledge on medicinal plants and turned their courses to chemistry, then considered as the modern approach. Half a century later, researchers discovered that plants were doing a marvellous job in chemical synthesis and that it would be wise to use it. They started exploring traditional plant medicines practiced in other civilizations. According to the common knowledge in pharmacy around year 2000 in the so-called developed countries, it was definitely an innovation. But seen by most traditional Indian populations in South America, it was not an innovation at all, only a transfer of technology to ignorant chemical engineers coming from the North. Therefore, the same practice may be seen as an innovation in a particular social context, and as a usual behaviour in another one. An important consequence of this fact is that innovation policy deals, as it has been said before, basically with receptivity, as we will see. Another consequence analysis of innovation in terms of cognitive sciences is a better understanding of the reluctance to innovations: the anticipative circuits that have been progressively (and automatically) built in our brain are the basis of our interpretation of reality. They are also defining our personality and our identity and, when they are destabilized by the emergence of an innovation, weak personalities may feel in danger. This happens at the individual level. It occurs also at the level of a collective being like a company or any other institution. In that case, the individuals may as well feel their social position threatened by the perspective of a new practice. An innovation is basically a social event. An invention may be basically technical. It becomes an innovation when a social transformation is implemented out of it. Some tools for innovation policy The five roles in big organisations A basic research on the innovation process has been managed by Prof Roberts from MIT observing the behaviour of the agents in 200 big companies. The result shows 5 different roles operating around each innovation. In most cases these roles are not officially defined by the management. They are produced by the innovation going on, as a spontaneous self-organising process. The list of these roles is the following: The inventor: he is the one who produces the idea, which often is an association of ideas. His motivation looks like the one of an artist, or even a prophet. He wants the idea to become real and transform the way of life. He thinks life would be better using his invention. Most inventors have generous motivations. The entrepreneur: the entrepreneur faces a challenge. He is the one who takes the project in charge. He is full of energy. His role is to make things work and drive the innovation to success. He is full of persuasion. He persuades the management, the bankers, the retailers, the customers and fights the unavoidable difficulties. The facilitator: the facilitator is a more humble agent, often an accountant, but his role is necessary. He anticipates the problems. He wipes out the obstacles and builds the facilities making progression easier. He knows all about the practical aspects of the action and prepares the logistics in order to make the action fluid. The godfather: the godfather is a personality. He is well known and has influence, in and out the organization. His role is to protect the innovation during the early stage of its maturation. Because at the beginning, when the innovation is only an idea and has not been completely endorsed, it stays fragile and needs protection. The information gatekeeper: the information gatekeeper is a very important role, though often neglected, even forgotten by the actors as well as the observers. He is the one who circulates the information. He is not exactly a researcher, rather someone who keeps aware of science and technology and alerts the actors on the opportunities. The technopole (science parks) strategy History shows that creativity grows in small groups where people invent a common language and built a common culture. The Italian courts at the renaissance, the Von Humbolt German universities during the late 19th century, the impressionist and surrealist movements in France, Belgium and Spain in early 20th century and the so called high tech development around Boston (route 128 and MIT) and then in Silicon Valley and Stanford University all show the same starting pattern: a small group inventing a new language. Building a Science park is an attempt to reproduce artificially the conditions of such collective creativity. There is now an international association of Science parks (IASP, headquarter in Spain, http://www.iasp.ws) with 372 member parks all over the world in which 200 000 companies have grown. Anyhow, the success of a science park depends on many factors. Like good cuisine, it needs a recipe, but also the talent of the chef. Cultural specificities are also to be found at the level of a region or at the level of a town. Recently, for instance, Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany, specialized in solar energy and ecological urban planning. The municipality developed passive buildings, common transportation (trams), bicycles and green spaces. Freiburg became a reference that any operator dealing with ecology must visit. It created a network of similar initiatives in Europe, using websites to share their experiences.. Better than following the high tech fashions, one should look also at the local cultural background out of which specific innovations can emerge. The diversity of technology is so great that many specific “niches” can be found. Instead of looking systematically for a worldwide breakthrough, innovation policies should concentrate on existing talents and boost up their creativity using technical culture animation by cross-fertilization. The three folds of innovation policy In 1980, the 6 countries program on innovation policies devoted an entire session to the definition of innovation policy. At that time, they had already organised 2 days meetings on the topic every 6 months for 5 years, and they figured that no common view had still emerged. Here is a simplified interpretation of the teachings coming out this debate, that appear still valid 30 years after. According to this standard definition, innovation policy is made of three folders: 1-a technical culture policy 2-a policy to remove obstacles to innovations 3-a challenging meaningful great program policy Let us go further in detail to these three chapters: The technical culture policy Research policy and its transmission through teaching is of course a major element of innovation policy. Anyhow, research activity only produces research results. Research results accumulate and increase the available knowledge. But knowledge is not innovation. Innovation occurs when someone (the innovator) comes, assimilates and uses the knowledge to innovate. Therefore, we insist on the cultural aspects of knowledge and know-how dissemination. During the last 40 years, in the hope to support future innovations, most research policies around the world rushed to develop the same disciplines: microelectronics, computer sciences, molecular biology and biotechnology. Recently, the fashionable trend moved slightly to nanotechnology and other “converging” techs (nano, bio, info and cogno) as said in the NSF report of the early 2000’s. Of course, if all researchers go in the same direction, only few will be ahead and many will try without success to reach the international level. In most cases, the research teams will live isolated in their country, their discipline being not connected to the local cultures and practices. The result is an important waste in energy and talent. But what else is possible? Technical culture diffusion. Regarding, not only research, but technology, let us first make an observation coming from linguistics: The basic vocabulary for daily life in a foreign country would count 600 words In literature, a successful novelist would use approximately 6000 words A good dictionary for a complete language would define around 60000 words The number of references in contemporary technology is around 6 million, a hundred times the complete language. The same order of magnitude that the diversity of living species on earth: between 3 and 30 million, out of which only 1.8 million have been named and described. From these figures, we can draw a first important conclusion: no individual can be familiar with all technologies. The researchers dealing with expert systems estimate the maximum vocabulary possible to handle by an expert at around 50000 words, less than 1% of the technological diversity. The consequence of that situation is well known and can be observed everywhere: there is no unique language in technology, but a set of dialects, each one dealing with a particular technique. It is the case also in science. Disciplines are scattered; each one has its particular language and references. Most ideas, as observed long ago by Arthur Koestler, are combination of ideas. Therefore, cross-fertilization is vital to innovation. Therefore, there is a need for a technical culture policy, at least to initiate a dialogue between isolated technical dialects. What is the practical way to do it? Several are possible: the simplest one is the work of go-between agents, having a general understanding of science and technology. They go to the firms and to the labs and put in touch specialists that would have something to learn from each other. A more complete way would refer to the action of the 165 prefecture labs set after 2nd WW in Japan, offering to small firms documentation, testing and measurements facilities, quality control, information on standards and prototype elaboration. Cultural animation, in the case of technology, includes also the organization of technological awareness on what’s happening in other countries, and the organization of technological fairs and exhibitions where the companies present their novelties to customers and colleagues. Of course, Internet makes exchange easier, but direct human relation stays necessary. To sum it up, cultural animation is necessary. The following example illustrates this necessity: during the mid 80’s, an experience was made at the French electricity board. A small group (less than 12 people) was conveyed for a single day session, driven by a tough professional animator. The group included micro-wave specialists on one side, meat conservation professionals on the other. These two categories had nearly no common technical vocabulary. Thus, the animator had to interrupt, at the beginning nearly every minute their presentations, asking them to make it understandable for all participants. Being very professional and well trained, he knew how to do it and avoid being rude or hurtful. The result, after one day, was 20 new ideas for patenting. It shows the efficiency of an animation to built intermediate language and understanding. The expression “cultural animation”, though dealing here with science and technology, does not exclude the usual meaning of culture. More precisely, every civilization has its particular cultural background. For instance, in Europe, people developed for centuries a particular interest for cuisine. Cuisine is an art; it can be also transformed by high technology. Recent developments named “molecular cuisine” initiated by a Spanish “chef” demonstrate many cross-fertilization opportunities. And the cultural environment of this particular art amplifies the echo of innovations. Any civilization has its own cultural background out of which innovation could emerge. For instance, in India, the traditional preventive medicine, called Ayurveda (vision of life) has been transmitted for centuries through old manuscripts. The president of the Indian Academy of sciences figured its prescriptions could be expressed in modern scientific vocabulary and made the translation. Nowadays Ayurveda is back as an academic discipline and taught in many universities. Its preventive practices will probably improve the health standard of the population and save a lot of money for the social security system. Remove obstacles The second chapter of innovation policy concerns the removal of obstacles. This is really the most difficult part of innovation policy, and most governments avoid as much as possible to deal with it. To understand why, let us first roughly describe these obstacles the innovator is confronted to. The first and major obstacle is that the final user may not be ready to accept the innovation. For instance, in 1902, an individual chemist produced and commercialized, in his drugstore, DDT as a new insecticide. He was well known and got a prize in London for his invention. To persuade his customers that it served as an insecticide, he mixed it with naphthalene. After a time, he considered that DDT was too costly to produce and naphthalene could be sold as easily without it. He abandoned and DDT was reinvented in Switzerland 36 year later by the great chemical firm Ciba-Geigy and marketed for agriculture. Apart form this maturity and adaptation to the market, which defines the gap between an invention and an innovation, innovators are usually facing two major obstacles: The first is bureaucracy. As observed by Parkinson, bureaucracy is a universal trend that concerns all big structures, public or private. The basic mechanism that grows bureaucracy is failure. When an incident occurs, the bureaucracy generates a new formality to cope with the problem. And, of course, it never wipes out the old formalities that stay here in case of … Viewed by an individual entrepreneur, bureaucracy generates an enormous waste of time and energy that may threaten the issue of his innovation. More, bureaucracies are not used to treat novelties and it will take time to acknowledge, understand and evaluate the acceptability of a new proposal. The usual way to overcome these reluctances would be to address personal human judgement and common sense of one particular receptive bureaucrat that will help from inside to make the file acceptable. Viewed from the innovation policy management, it would be necessary to avoid sanctions for such bureaucrats and even organize rewards in case of success. The second is an even stronger obstacle: the coalition of vested interests. From the natural evolution of an economy results the growth of the most successful companies. Usually, a stable situation is reached when a little number of dominant firms (oligopoly) control the market and organize a lobby. In countries where anti-trust legislation is absent or inactive, this concentration process of economic power would be reinforced and lead to a monopoly. In the case of daily life technologies, not subject to industrialization and operated by craftsmen, the defence of vested interests would take the shape of a guild. Control of the marketplace by a community of storekeepers (“bazari” or shopping centres) may also organize the resistance to novelty. All these forces are naturally defending their positions and often look at innovations as being undesirable threats or perturbations. The resistance to change is often increased by the support of the public bureaucracy, often issued of the same ruling class. Viewed from the innovator, only few strategies appear feasible. The most usual would be to find complicity inside one of the dominant firms, for instance someone that could use the innovation to support his personal strategy inside the firm. Viewed from the innovation policy, it stresses the necessity to implement anti trust and small business legislations and any other law avoiding conflicts of interest. It leads also to rebuild some old laws that were conceived in ancient times for the past industrial technical system. For instance, outdated intellectual property laws, applied to new technologies like software, drugs, copyrights on music literature and films, appear counterproductive. Instead of stimulating creativity, what they are supposed to do, they reinforce monopolistic positions, slow down the diffusion of culture and hinders the cure of millions of illnesses in the poorest countries. As a conclusion, fighting the obstacles to innovation may be the most effective part of innovation policy. But it needs an enormous courage. The meaningful projects It is usually assumed that innovation is motivated by profit. When looking at facts, this assumption appears quite doubtful. Many examples of innovators exist that earn money to innovate and do not innovate to earn money. This can be stated as the artistic feature of innovation, as most artists are first devoted to the accomplishment of their work, caring for the original message it bears. For innovators too, the meaning is essential. And innovation can be compared to a new linguistic practice addressed to society that changes the meaning of things. It is, as we stated before, a paradigm shift. Reminding the case of Silicon Valley, one should not underestimate the influence of huge public procurements on the constitution of a creative community. In that case, most of these procurements were driven by military goals, those that escape usual accounting constraints. Being military, they look supported by fear money rather than by love money! The important point is that it made investigation and testing easier, and by products came afterwards, as shown in the example of thermal imaging quoted before. Many other situations can be exemplified where a great program lead to side effects developments. For instance, the recent building of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider), the biggest particle accelerator near Geneva generated experience and know how on supra-conductivity in the contracting firms. And supra-conductivity is also developed for medical instrumentation and may serve in the future for electricity transportation. Innovation and great programs in the 21st century Predictability Innovation is often considered as unpredictable. The historians, when looking at one particular innovation, would notice that the moment and the circumstances of its development depend on many different factors. They would show innovations abandoned and redeveloped dozens of years later, like for instance the DDT Invented by a chemist in 1902 and reinvented by Ciba Geigy in 1938.. Therefore, social scientists would look at technical change as a collection of random processes due to the combination of bright ideas and dynamic entrepreneurship, basically unpredictable. But some facts drive our attention to another view. The most impressive is probably the publication in “The Atlantic Monthly”, July 1945 of an article by Vannevar Bush: "As We May Think" Can be found at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush. Vannevar Bush was the scientific adviser of President Roosevelt during Second World War, and in this significant article “he holds up an incentive for scientists when the fighting has ceased”. Seen 65 years later, this article is astounding. It predicts most technological evolutions that have taken place since. It presents how technology, which, after war, will be devoted to the service of mankind, will change daily life, as well at home, or in the retail store or at the office. He predicts major evolutions in information technologies, including miniaturisation, though the transistor was not yet invented. Of course, the author was perfectly informed on the state of knowledge and he was a particularly bright person. But it shows clearly a global predictability of technology, though the detailed circumstances of its evolution stay unpredictable. Therefore, a similar exercise for 21st century is feasible and, of course, useful. The work has been done. It shows only one major novelty which differs from Vannevar Bush’s analysis: the limits of the planet and the fragility of the biosphere, stated by the Club of Rome in 1970 and now accepted as a driver to a necessary transformation of the way of life. Technical system transitions When looking back to the past evolution of technology in history, one can observe periods of systemic transitions: The best known is the industrial revolution that started in the 18th century and is not yet accomplished worldwide. Another technological economic and social revolution occurred in 12th and 13th centuries in Europe. Another one occurred during 7th and 6th centuries BC in Middle East, India and China along the “silk road”. All these are systemic changes, deep transformations in which daily life is transformed and the ruling class replaced. They expand on more than one century. Their speed is limited by a human factor. It cannot go faster than the speed of adaptation of human beings to the new technologies. The replacement of generations defines the rhythm of adaptation. In the early Middle Ages as well as during the industrial revolution and also in the present one, that we name “cognitive revolution”, the change in technologies can be described by 4 poles, usually presented on a symbolic cross: In the case of the middle age, the basic innovation regarding materials was the use of iron in agriculture, not only for ploughs. All sorts of tools were developed, that stayed as the technical environment of the peasants until the industrialization of agriculture in 20th century. Regarding energy, the water mills became non-specialized sources, used not only for bakery, but also for carpentry, textile or beverage. The social time scale was defined by the sound of the belfry, giving its rhythm to countryside life. Finally, man biosphere relations turned to be more systematic using selection of seeds and cattle breeding. In all these fields, research was driven most of the time by monasteries, where the tests were operated and the experimental results analysed, stored and diffused to other monasteries using manuscripts (Gutenberg printing came only in 1450). At that time, Universities were only starting (Bologna, Oxford, Paris). A few were involved in technology, as Oxford in time measurement for instance. In the industrial revolution, these 4 poles were again activated for innovation. But, as anticipated by Vannevar Bush, the vertical axis moved up an order of magnitude in finesse and complexity. The time of the chronometer goes down to a tenth of a second, compared to the middle age belfry ringing the hours. And Pasteur’s microbiology uses a microscope looking at cells and microbes. But the industrial age is also the result of a disruption now coming to its end. During 17th and early 18th century, over exploitation of the European forests lead to their exhaustion, and economy had to turn to non renewable sources of energy: coal and, in 20th century, oil. This move allowed easy development, but in an unbalanced movement that disregarded man-biosphere equilibrium which had been for millenniums the sacred rule of survival. With the cognitive revolution, the finesse of technology changes again its order of magnitude. The time scale goes down from one tenth of a second to one billionth of a second (a hundred million times thinner) in a first stage and probably even one million times thinner again (the femtosecond 10-15) with the optical commutation. The materials are now elaborated at molecular level for the polymers and even at atomic level (one billionth of a meter) with the development of nanotechnologies. Biotechnology, in manipulating the genetic codes, reaches also that level of finesse. That’s why the term “converging” technologies has been promoted as a complex nano-info-bio-cogno, in order to stimulate understanding (and financing) of these fields of researches by politicians. Vannevar Bush pointed in the right direction. What’s new is the order of magnitude and the speed of change. It has been so fast that the average citizen does not realize that his portable phone is computing in nanoseconds, as does his laptop, and that the calculations of the GPS Global positioning system in his car need such a time scale to transform the signals coming from the satellites into his position on earth, with a precision less than one meter. What’s new also is the ecological challenge. Clearly, if mankind does not succeed in rebuilding a sustainable equilibrium with nature, the so-called civilization will inevitably collapse see Jared Diamond’s book: “collapse” on the end of past civilizations.. The question raises not only mineral non-renewable resources, but also biodiversity dramatically threatened by human activities. The statement is clear: Nature can survive without Man, but mankind cannot survive without Nature. The multiple crisis occurred after 1985: the speculative software in 87, the multiple financial crisis of the 90’s in Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, Korea, Russia, Argentina, the new technology crisis in 2001 and the subprime crisis started in 2007 are not only financial events. They are part of a transition between the industrial civilization and the cognitive civilization. And this transition is difficult: the speed of information pushes the money flows out of control, the individuals are faced to hyperchoice Word invented by Alvin Toffler to point the overflow of information that makes daily life choices difficult to handle. and cognitive saturation, the organizations, structured by rules of the past, adapt slowly. Assuming the settlement of the basic statement above, any industry, any technical training should look at the cognitive revolution cross that we have drawn above before engaging an innovation process. Let us take an example: transportation industry. Probably energy shortage and global sustainability would increase the share of common transportation (bus, train, metro…) and diminish the share of motor private transportation (car, motorbike…). But given a particular transportation system, being individual or collective, private or public, one should take into account that the materials will be different and probably lighter, the energy system will be different, not only in energy production but also with electrical power transmission, and above all the communication system will be different, delivering all sorts of useful information about the traffic, allowing distance work and leisure, connecting and advising. The cost of manufacturing compared to the purchase power of the customer stays of course a basic data but, as the new technological wave is progressing, the cost of its devices goes down allowing at the same time modernity and moderate prices. Regarding innovation policies, it can be stated that a crisis situation shows a need for innovation. It shows at least that the old system is out of control and needs to be either repaired or even rebuilt. The reaction of the vested interests is usually to try to repair and maintain their positions. But, in the present situation, it may be wiser to plan rebuilding. The order of magnitude of the transition to a planetary collective intelligence managing sustainability is obviously out of scope for most present organizations. Anyhow, between the need for innovation and the effective realization of innovations it’s a long way to go, a way full of obstacles. Archaeology shows civilizations that died instead of adapting See for instance Jared Diamond’s “collapse”. Therefore, the issue of the present transition is not clear, and ordinary economic competition, enforced during the last 20 years, did not prove its ability to overcome the major problems raised by this exceptional transition. 21st century great programs The usual reaction to crisis, as during 19th century 1848 in Europe or in 1929, has two faces: 1-the economic one, a massive (Keynesian) investment in great infrastructure programs 2-the social one, organisation of youth control through education or youth organisations Regarding innovation let us focus on the investment programs, that have been tracked down as a basic factor for building future know how and abilities. Success of the transition may thus depend on them. Looking from the great technical system evolution, let us draw an approximate list of 12+1 major programs that might be expected in 21st century: I-The basic elements 01-Energy Energy has been the seed of the industrial revolution. Facing a shortage of wood due to forest overexploitation, economy turned to fossil carbon, coal first and, during 20th century, fuel. This period is coming to its end. The resource will be exhausted during 21st century and the carbon dioxide emissions will have to be limited to avoid excessive global warming. A new seed therefore has to be found. It is likely to be the sun. Solar energy may be captured directly by solar cells. But it is also the origin of winds and of plant growth, therefore windmills and bio-fuels are also solar energy. Fossil biomass too, but it is accumulation of past solar energies, a stock now coming to its end. Energy control is in line with the new technical system as the latter use resources in a more precise and subtle way. Because of the problems raised by global warming, it will probably be speeded up through the intervention of specific agencies, supplemented by taxes on energy consumption, using the revenue from these taxes to promote new, more "sustainable" technologies. During the past decades, facing the oil depletion and the necessity to control greenhouse gas emission, most operators have looked for one best solution solving the energy problem worldwide. Some experts advocated nuclear, others solar, windmills or bio-fuels. It now appears that the resilience of the energy system does not need one best technology, but a diversity of sources. To face the risks it is necessary to acquire experience in several fields and the ability to shift from one source to the other. The main feature of the new world energy system is the interconnection of the electrical world network. Electricity can be produced from a variety of sources, many of them not using carbon combustion (hydraulic, solar, windmills, nuclear). But the storage of electrical power faces a difficulty: classical batteries are heavy devices, and new lithium ones are costly. Other technologies will probably be developed, at least for mobile storages. Liquid hydrogen for planes and compressed air storage for cars are examples of possible developments. The attention has been driven to hydrogen, some experts advocating a new "hydrogen civilization". Clearly, replacing carbon fuels by hydrogen avoids the greenhouse effect. Burning it only produces a few more clouds and it is non-polluting. Hydrogen can be obtained from any source of electricity and present day engines and burners can use it with a few modifications (safety, corrosion). But it is only a vector for energy transmission, as are electricity lines and maybe tomorrow microwave beams. But the major challenge in energy is energy saving. It concerns all sectors: building, transportation, agriculture, industry and daily life behaviour. In many cases, it will be possible to cut down dramatically energy consumption and high prices of energy will push the economic actors to do it. 02 Planetary garden After the seed (energy), one has to consider the fertilization. Solar radiation coming to earth gives to the plants and the whole ecosystem the energy they need to grow and multiply. The role of mankind as a governing species, is to manage and maintain harmony in the result of this fertilization process. The time has come to remind that nature can survive without humankind, but humankind cannot survive without nature. The great richness of life and the diversity of the ecological heritage is in danger. The depletion of the species due to human activities has reached several thousand times the natural rhythm of extinction. Humankind is in a position to control nature and therefore assumes a responsibility. Man is the guardian (gardener) of life. He has the power to destroy life but also to preserve and enrich it. A world programme for nature reserves, the protection of endangered species, conservation of our genetic heritage and reforestation will probably be drawn up. Global management of water, covering irrigation, desalination, cleaning and recycling should be set up without damaging the environment. Dams will probably be installed in the largest mountain ranges in the world, the Andes and especially the Himalayas next to India and China, both potentially large consumers of electricity and irrigation. A network of lakes, dams and canals in the Indian peninsula, China, North and South America, Africa and Siberia should be built to overcome the difficulty of local water supplies, mainly devoted to agriculture. Desalination plants will be built in dry coastal areas. The agricultural system, previously exclusively concerned with food production for the market, is now evolving to produce energy and also into the widely accepted function of preservation, maintenance and development of Nature. Local supply chains will recover, while intensive and industrialized agriculture and long food supply chains, which are consuming energy and carbon based products, should decline. Living closer to nature, the exploiter transforms himself into an artist chaperoning the earth's fertility. The revival of deserted areas by overexploitation, deforestation or abandonment will be a great and difficult challenge. The institutional framework for these tasks will not only consist of state administrations but also of an appropriate world legislation commanding states and a trans-national network of agencies (modelled on the water-regulatory agencies) led by professionals, levying taxes on damages to Nature, providing public services and using their resources in the interest of Nature. 03 Global communication This gardening fertilization process will multiply all over the planet through the digital communication system and change the way of life and the symbiosis of humans with nature. The communications infrastructure is the nervous system of the future. By 2015, most countries, including China, India and South America will have more than 70% of their population connected to the Internet. Telephone, Internet, television, radio, GPS are “converging technologies”, that are progressively integrated in the same or similar terminals and made accessible almost everywhere through GSM emission, at least in urban environments. It will take approximately one generation to be completely familiar with these new media in business as in daily life. Any producer, any craftsman having a world wide micro specialty may be able to find customers all over the planet if the perception of the public escapes saturation by spams. Such a situation should offer an immense potential to small firms. It will be the effect of decentralized communication (Internet) following a period of centralized communication (television and radio) that operated in favour of big firms through brand advertisement. A powerful and reliable telecommunication infrastructure is a prerequisite for the development of small firms and therefore for economic prosperity and the maintenance of democracy. General information services will be needed as well as telephone "lines". These information services comprise not only important public services: transport reservation, directories, first aid, positioning but also data bases for students, consumers, craftsmen and other professionals in the emerging trans-national villages. "Global villages" will become reality. Distance work should develop. The old frontiers of nation states, inherited from 17th century, should decline. The ultimate barrier to human communication will be the linguistic one. The new landscape favours the use of vernacular languages like English (or “globish”), Spanish, French, Russian, Hindi or Mandarin. But it should also favour the revival of old cultures and languages. In Africa and South America, where the colonial and post colonial period had wiped out by law the ethnic identities, the new communication system will give them a chance for revival and at the same time reduce the influence of the present nation states. Regarding safety, anyone will be able to keep in touch, even in case of emergency wherever she/he is in the world, including the jungle or the sea, using miniaturized mobile communication tools. Anyhow, the main consequence of the worldwide communication system is still unknown. It is the emergence of a global consciousness of mankind and its relations with life and nature. If the system works as a neuronal network around the planet, it should generate a new form of global consciousness, probably more oriented than the present way of thinking towards nature care, cultural enrichment, mutual understanding and recognition. Religious beliefs and practices will also be at stake. But, up to now, no one knows if this consciousness will emerge peacefully or through conflicts. 04 Restructuring towns The development of human settlements during the end of industrial age has generated all over the world a urban implosion. Enormous cities have been built grouping each more than ten million people. In these places, equilibrium with nature has been lost. Therefore, organic restructuring of human settlements will inevitably be on the agenda of the cognitive civilization building. In practice, the future of towns raises major question marks. More than half of mankind lives in towns and more than half of this urban population is in Asia. Urban implosion looks like a powerful wave that nothing could stop. Anyhow, most megalopolis are saturated. They suffer traffic jams, with losses of time accounting for million of hours per day, much more than the work time it would require to reorganize them. They become unhealthy dangerous places, where criminality develops. Saturations appeal for renewal by restructuring with common transportation, green spaces and various collective facilities. The necessary Keynesian economic stimulation plans, as in the mid 19th century in Europe, may find in such programs intelligent and useful ways to spend the taxpayer’s money. To go deeper into the question: “what could be the future of towns”, one has to wonder: why do we have towns? Why so many people left the basic survival resources of the countryside, agriculture and cattle breeding, to live in cities? The first towns, in Mesopotamia, developed around 3000BC. At that time, the camel had just been domesticated and the caravans inaugurated the first commercial roads. Basically, these first towns were marketplaces. Market practice, at that time, is probably also the cause of the development of writing, measurement, accounting, schools, laws and courts of justice. The role of towns as market places has been active all along history, particularly around the Mediterranean, in India, China and pre-Columbian Latin America; in the 13th century in Europe too, with the Hanseatic League. Nowadays, many German cities stay organised around the “fair”, a place devoted to commercial exhibitions. Anyhow, the industrial revolution has slightly changed the role of the cities. The privatisation of the “commons” chased the peasants out of their land. They had to move to cities and find employment in factories. The scarcity of wood obliged also to dig for coal. Concentration of population grew around mines and industrial plants. In ancient times, trade dealt only with surplus. With the industrial age, trade and employment became necessary for survival. That makes society more vulnerable to economic crises. We are now, at world level, entering the new “cognitive” technical system generating a new civilization. What consequences on cities could be anticipated for 21st century? First, it has to be quoted that urban development has already left many places. Shrinking cities due to the decay of industry are multiplying. For instance, in US, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cleveland, St Louis, Buffalo, lost approximately half of their population between 1950 and 2000. In Europe, Glasgow in UK and Liepzig in Germany and many others located in former industrial regions, are also considered as shrinking cities. Ghost towns, completely abandoned, can be found in all continents. Industry, in a first stage, has been looking for low cost manpower. Its movement generated urban developments in China and India, as well as in Mexico. In a second stage, manpower will probably be replaced by robots. Therefore, the motor of future urban developments is to be found elsewhere. As tertiary employment represents now the majority of urban workforce, is it possible to rely on it to provide new urban developments? As a matter of fact, banking, insurance and finance lead to developments during the last decades, in London or Dubai for instance. But this evolution represents only a first stage. In the future, transactions will be operated through the Internet from any place, as any type of bureaucratic work. It would be wiser to rely on research, education and culture to built future urban developments. Only part of these activities might be delocalised. Research needs access to scientific instruments, particularly in new disciplines like nanotechnology, and culture needs direct exchange and physical presence. Science parks can be found in all continents. Most of them bring successful developments. New towns will probably be created to absorb the surplus of migrants. Some of them will be built in areas which have become habitable through global warming (Canada, Scandinavia, Siberia...), associated with agriculture (even urban agriculture), others in regions containing natural resources but with little population at present (Australia, central Africa, South America, Siberia, Canada), others at sea, as we will see later. II- Visibility and organisation 05 Design for a new world The visibility of the new cognitive and gardening civilization will appear through design and architecture, as in the previous civilization changes. A new way of life does not reveal itself through theories but through the design of daily life products. Design is a crucial moment of the innovation process. It has developed during 20th century aiming at successful combination of functionality, aesthetics and cost reduction. It has become an academic discipline, including various specialties. The transition to the cognitive civilization is a major challenge for design: First, it will have to use an increased diversity of materials. The basic materials of the industrial age were steel and cement, both including important amounts of energy. The diversity started at the end of 20th century, due to the renewed variety of polymers, alloys and ceramics. It is rapidly increasing with the development of materials issued from plants, preferred according to their “natural” or ecological characteristics, and also because plants having operated a large part of the synthesis, the chemical work is diminished. The amount of knowledge needed to handle this widely increased diversity of materials will be changed by an order of magnitude and appeal for higher qualification of designers. Second, 21st century will have to build a recycling economy to replace the trash economy of 20th century. The waste generated by human consumption is now embarrassing in all parts of the world, in the countryside as well as in the cities. Recycling is slowly developing, but it is already present at the agenda of most industries. Moving from a trash economy to a recycled one needs some collective decisions, establishing standards for instance. It needs also a great amount of design work, sustained by computer modelling and higher qualification of the designers. Third, the communication interface with the users being faster and portable, the designer will have to take into account a greater variety of situations and the instinct response of human brain to stimuli. In the case of games, serious or not, the global reaction takes less than one tenth of a second, is typical. Programming design has therefore to adapt more closely to human ethology. Fourth, the revival of local and ethnic cultures, supported by the facilities given by the Internet, will appeal for a renewal of design. It has already been the case for music. Ethnic inspiration has been growing during the second half of 20th century. One should expect this inspiration to irradiate creativity and transform daily life design too. Automation and communication will enable companies to establish themselves in their true role: socialization for the future, replacing earlier forms such as the village and the tribe. Consequently, they will be expected to provide work for everyone, allow better use of creative skills, and make room for innovation, design and artistic creation. They will also be expected to serve the user in good conditions of quality and reliability, adapt product design to the real needs of humanity, including those of children, the sick, the handicapped and the elderly, and encourage everyone to give their best. Public regulators and NGO’s, national or international, are expected to create and maintain the business environment in a shape that will drive the private interests of the firms in the line with the common good, including public health and nature care. It is clearly a difficult task, for which independence from the lobbies is needed, as well as qualification in regulation design. It will be particularly expected to preserve the freedom to create new firms, competing with those in existence. A strong international, judicial framework is necessary to ensure compliance with these goals, establishing companies (associations, foundations...) as international legal entities. Except for public services, it includes limiting deals and monopoly positions, opposing sector based interests, secure the observance of partnership commitments for everyone, maintain the right to innovate, define the conditions for the folding up of a company and institute a global, standardized, accountancy framework. In a cognitive civilization of small-scale, organized in a network, cognitive infrastructure is necessary. One cannot expect that the six million words of the new technical system will be mastered by craftsmen and their clients without community services providing access for everyone to technical information and inventories, to testing and measurement techniques, to quality controls and to the results of state-of-the-art research. The expression of people's creativity is dependent upon the practical conditions of access to these abundant and complex data. 06 Solidarity and health system One of the basic character of this new civilization, that will appear through design, is the revival of solidarities. Distant communication and nature care are bearing a deep transformation. It can be compared to what happened 6 to 8 hundred million years ago when the mono cellular bacteria united and built together poly cellular beings. Regarding 21st century human species, such an evolution, due to the new communication and the perception of the limits, would mean the building of a different institutional landscape and a wide increase in the expression of solidarities. The health system and the care for poverty should be deeply transformed while entering the cognitive civilization. First, the enhanced communication facilities allow developments of telemedicine. For instance, with adequate portable warning systems, many patients will be able to move normally, instead of being stuck in a hospital bed. Information retrieval should also be of great help, offering to the doctor a complete landscape of the patient health history. Second, innovations are expected that should allow self care improvements. Domestic or even portable instruments measuring a variety of health indicators already exist, but are seldom used by the public. The thermometer stays the only one currently used. But, with adequate information, which is available on the Internet, self care and prevention of diseases should develop. Such an evolution would bring classical western medicine closer to Chinese and Indian medicines (Ayurveda) which are focussed on prevention and personal health control. It may save a lot of money to the social security systems and greatly improve the health of the population. The exercise of health care, if adequately backed up by relevant legislation and funding, can become an expression of human activity as well established, diverse and creative as that of the market economy. The mode of organization for these activities is the quasi-enterprise, in other words, recognized and independent legal entities either public or municipal or, in limited cases, private. Their main purpose is not profit, but they need to balance their accounts to survive. As they will assume responsibility for a variety of collective purposes, they can be the recipients of donations, tax revenues or exceptional levies. For instance, a certain freedom of choice could be given to the tax-payer/donor to devote a part of his contribution to a particular institution. Complete privatization of health care has proved to be ineffective, for a simple reason: the effectiveness of a private competitive system relies on the strength of the customer. In case of illness, the customer being the patient is definitely in a weak position, in many cases unable to operate rational choices and even to defend his rights. Furthermore, a large world-wide infrastructure will probably be set up for a health service, as well as for a world chain of care organizations, each taking the form best adapted to the location and the terms and conditions of its mission 07 World Judicial system One of the key factors of this renewal of solidarity is a balanced and effective treatment of the actors. Such an objective, in a period of deep evolution with erratic forces of the past still at work, claims for a strong and efficient international judicial system, using the best of technology. The usual political thinking is still based on the nation state concept. It defines the three “powers”, executive, legislative and judicial inside the nation. Any attempt to enlarge any of these powers is suspected to threaten its sovereignty. Anyhow, experience already shows that reality is moving away from this simplistic theory. Local executive powers of municipalities have a growing influence, and supra national powers too (the European commission, parliament and courts of justice for instance). The laws are or should be expressing the local customs of each particular culture. But they have also to take into account worldwide enlargement of trade, communication and nature care. In technology, an international state of law is already in practice defined through different types of standards. The principle of the territoriality of law is overflowed by globalization. It will probably be replaced by a more complex system made of several levels of legislation and regulations. In domains concerning the planet, like nature preservation, communication, technology and trade, world legislation should emerge, simplified and internationalized. In its first decades, globalization has been promoted by strong economic forces, which found their interest in exploiting natural resources and low cost manpower all over the world. They claimed and obtained free circulation of goods and services and for the enforcement of international laws on property (including intellectual property) protecting their rights. In a first stage, this movement facilitated the diffusion of existing technologies worldwide. But, regarding innovation policies, it generated progressively oligopolies and even monopolies that inevitably act as obstacles to innovation. The legal struggle for generic drugs aimed at curing low purchase power populations exemplifies the obstacles operated by monopolistic positions. Therefore, maintaining the freedom to innovate will be a major and difficult task of the future international judicial and regulatory power. It is necessary to remind, pushing the logic to its end, that the ultimate expression of the capture of an economic territory is the mafia. And it is less and less possible to fight against mafias, drugs, swindles, or to arbitrate company litigations within a strictly national framework. But clearly many small or weak nations are unable to fight these international powers, legal or illegal and some of them are already under the influence of a corrupted dominant class. Therefore the second pole of innovation policy widely relies on the judicial and regulatory system as anti-trust and anti mafia and also protection of the “commons” (public services) against the abuses of private interests. It has also to be noticed that modern communication and observation technologies deeply transform the judicial process. Satellite observation, for instance, shows what is happening in agriculture, building, fisheries, pollutions in any place of the whole planet. Communication allows a witness to attend a trial at a distance. Information retrieval techniques simplify file consultations etc.. While local rights, reflecting the soul of different peoples should be complied with, procedures of appeal before internationally recognized courts, a minimum common legislation and international business law, are all becoming a necessity. All citizens of the world need to have access to international recourse against abuses of power, oppression and robbery still exercised here and there by abusive authorities, whether public or private. Therefore, the practical functioning of judicial power will probably be completed. The judicial pyramid was supposed to culminate in every nation state with a supreme court. International specialized supreme courts are progressively built to complete the pyramid worldwide. The best known is the ICC (International Criminal Court). In some situations, the WTO (World Trade Organization) is also partly acting as a court. In Europe, some courts (Human rights fro instance) are already functioning for several decades. 08 Global tax system Organizing solidarity, justice and design of the new civilization will need an adequate taxation aimed at directing the private interests in the direction of the common good. For that reason, the tax system of the 21st century will probably be based on different principles as the one inherited from 20th century. It is and will be a topic for international negotiation to provide equality of opportunity for economic players. The standardization of the tax system, already in progress, can and should be a powerful development factor. It brings in its wake a standardization of accounts and tax returns, with translation into all languages leading to a simplification of ordinary taxation. Furthermore, as soon as one finds oneself in the world of small enterprises, and generalized information technologies, imposition and auditing forming part of the tax system should also be adapted. But the most important evolution concerns the principles on which taxation is based. Taxes, for millenniums, have been the expression of a balance of power. They were created to finance military and police protections against looting and robberies. They were expanded progressively to finance public or collective facilities like roads and urban infrastructures, education and health services. The growing complexity of taxations made them difficult to understand by the public. Most taxpayers feel behind the taxes the hand of power, and suspect its abuse. Tax evasion has become a worldwide problem. Anyhow, one cannot expect the difficult situation of 21st century, namely the risk of collapse for civilizations and ecosystems, without the help of an appropriate tax system. Entering the age of rationality would mean that each contribution has to be justified by its expected effects, in terms of incentive. Tax systems are part of innovation policy. Taxes provide guidelines to the economic players. An increased funding of agencies (of the environment, for saving energy, of metrology...) corresponding to the programmes listed here could be put on the agenda. The opportunities given by the Internet and mobile communication allow a meaningful improvement of the taxpayer’s information. As its installation will be operational, a relative freedom of choice of the taxpayer may be allowed. It would increase the democratic expression through his choices. This may lead to a direct implication of the citizen. The revenue from some taxes will be allocated directly by him (to organizations for humanitarian care, nature protection, teaching or technical research...). Some of these organizations may be trans-national or non governmental (NGO’s). III- The consciousness enlargement 09 Education for know how transmission The bio-cognitive civilization mobilizes a wider diversity of knowledge and know-how than the preceding industrial one. Being organised in smaller decision units, know-how (technical and managerial) will be shared by an increased proportion of the population. Therefore, the building of this civilization and its maintenance need a stronger education system. In the emerging cognitive civilization, education will probably become compulsory at planetary level. Internet is a powerful assistant but does not replace the whole teaching and training process. While the relative cost of energy increases, people will have, at least for basic needs, to rely on local short supply chains and develop self-sustainability know how. This evolution will make obsolete most education systems of the so-called developed countries. These, originally created to teach, ended up being used for selection and then exclusion. Instead of spreading knowledge useful to everyone they emphasized esoteric forms of learning appropriated by the elite. In spite the fact that, in these countries, most citizen are convinced that anyone should be able to access learning and mastering new techniques and be free to follow the paths of knowledge. In the long term, prosperity and health arises from mass education and not from the learning of the elite. A basic technical culture embracing everyone is required: covering diet, hygiene, contraception, do it yourself, computers. This technical culture is the first pole of innovation policy, and education the main vector to promote it. It concerns both the professional sphere and the domestic one, which should move closer due to an increased self-sustainability. The information system, particularly the Internet will also help to share practical useful knowledge: for instance how to repair and maintain objects in daily use (cloths, plumbing, brickwork, carpentry, electricity, electronics) how to survive in difficult conditions (at sea, in the forest, in the snow, the desert, in poverty). Specialist language should no longer be used as an artful and perverse means of segregation. Illiteracy, the main factor of exclusion, might also be eradicated. 10 Science and metrology In the cognitive civilization, Science has a central place. As an effort to access the unknown, it might be compared to the role formerly given to religions. The enormous investment mobilised for space telescopes or particle accelerators can be compared to those mobilised in the past to built temples. Science, during the second half of 20th century, has been widely funded through military procurements. It was a consequence of the nuclear weapon. This period is now declining, and science is more and more funded for itself, and its results made public through magazines, television and the Internet. Safety questions are still present in science. The warning concerning the concentration of greenhouse gases and the expected consequences of global warming is due to the work of several hundreds of scientists from all continents, commissioned by the United Nations. When adopting the perspective of a Keynesian economic stimulus plan, science policy appears as a perfect candidate. Its activity produces not only knowledge, but improvement in know how through the practical experience of handling and improving instrumentation and inventing new experimental devices. Science relies on measurement. Even the biggest investments in science, like particle colliders, are measurement instruments. It is due to the very nature of science, which is motivated by doubt, and therefore looking for more and more precise verification of theories. The question asked to the collider has no more relation with military, economic or social concerns. It is a philosophical one: what is matter? Similarly, research in molecular biology and paleontology would try to answer to another philosophical question: what is life? And research in neurosciences to a third one: what is consciousness? The most important evolution brought by science is not in the result of scientific observations, which are temporary and imperfect. It is the scientific attitude facing real daily life, the core of which is made of doubt and measurement. Metrology is an aid to understanding the self and one's natural surroundings by providing references and means of verification. Suitable, portable instruments for measuring water and air quality, the quality of food, the state of one's body (auto-analysis), of plants and animals could be available. Thereby everyone can share responsibility for life, with each individual in charge of monitoring their gardens and themselves. On a wider scale, world networks for analysis, testing and industrial metrology and remote monitoring of the environment by satellite could be set up and their results made available to everyone. The right of every person to information on what s/he eats, breathes, and on all products sold to them and to information on information might be in the future protected by law. 11 Space program Activity in space enlarges consciousness by offering a new vision of what is happening on earth. Seen from above, frontiers seem derisory, Nature fragile and our large constructions insufficient. In the perspective of Keynesian stimulus plans, space programs are excellent candidates. They use technologies formerly developed for military purposes, but they use them at the service of peace. Therefore they help to convert the so-called high tech industries at the service of mankind and nature care. Technically outer space acts like a large mirror of earth, reflecting communications and giving back an image of the state of our planet (weather, plant cover, pollution). These facilities open the way to a global monitoring of the ecosystem overtaking the local authorities. Unexpected services have already been made available to the public: the Global Positioning System for instance, which allows any car, any boat, any pedestrian to know his position with an approximation less than one meter and to find his way in any place on the planet. Most great countries have now access to space, though the cost of launching has not decreased as expected in 20th century. Russia, US and Europe have been the leaders for a time. Japan, China, India and Brazil catch up with these pioneers. Science will mobilize an important share of the space programs. It will be not only for the sake of pure knowledge in astrophysics, but also for the understanding of our planet. Weather forecast already improved through satellite coverage. It provides effective warnings for hurricanes as well as useful predictions for agriculture or navigation. Many other questions, like the evolution of earth ecosystems, the movements of the oceans, the ice melting and the volcano eruptions will mobilize satellite observations. In the future it may also settle life in the cosmos independently of the presence of a welcoming planet such as our earth. It should be in artificial hollow planets accommodating "biospheres", small-scale models of complete ecosystems in equilibrium. Life in space will be the outcome of a technological sequence: space ship, use of materials from outer space (the moon or asteroid belts), space solar stations sending electrical power to earth though microwaves, and finally artificial hollow planets with their on-board ecosystems. 12 Ocean Cities Back to the origins: life came from the seashore. All continents have been occupied, filled and saturated by humans, except one: the oceans. A maritime civilization is starting which needs even more care for nature than the ground one. Building on sea may be the largest sector of investment in 21st century: People have been moving nearer the sea over the 20th century. In many places, the seashore is now over crowded. It still attracts human beings. The logical way to respond to this demand is to build on sea. Important platforms are already in operation, for instance in Osaka bay, including a huge airport built on embankment. Some others are being completed, like the artificial palm tree island in Dubai. The rise of the sea level due to global warming, formerly estimated around half a meter during 21st century is now revised an may exceed one or maybe two meters. In that case, many places in the world, for instance in Holland, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Louisiana and Florida and coral reef islands would have to rebuild their infrastructure. The protection by dykes or the construction of vast embankments may appear inadequate, too weak to face the future rise of the sea level. Therefore, building floating cities numbering several thousand or even millions of inhabitants, in spite of the magnitude of the investment needed, may appear more realistic. Anyhow, it has been quoted that building on sea may be cheaper than on land, due to easier industrialization. Regarding sustainability, the technical elements are already available: solar, wind and wave energy, aquaculture, hydroponics, desalination, communication and warning through satellites. Their development can be controlled to avoid polluting the oceans. Biological enrichment of the seashore is easy to generate, though controlling it appears necessary to prevent invading species from destroying the ecosystem. These marine cities will have different purposes: harbour activities, producing food from the sea, advanced research and industrial technology (science parks) and also leisure like water sports. The maritime habitat may offer a higher quality of life. Traffic, water supplies and waste disposal will all be simplified. Using mass production, this form of urbanism will be economically advantageous near coastlines where the price of land has become exorbitant (Tokyo bay, Riviera). But first of all, sea legislations, established for other technologies, would have to be revised. Implementation of the great programs The above statements and descriptions show the eminent role of great programs in innovation policies. In a crisis situation, they operate a Keynesian revitalisation of the global economic turnover. But they also built the future in three ways: They structure daily life, particularly those dealing with reshaping cities, ocean cities, planetary garden and energy. They generate a learning process making economy more competitive and resilient, able to face all sorts of difficulties. This is particularly the case for communication, space program, research and metrology and design. They structure economy and society if they are simplified, managed with loyalty, efficient and cleaned of bureaucratic heaviness. This is clearly the case for tax policy, judicial power, health and education. According to their eminent role in public policy, great programs must be adequately managed. Many examples of past failures show that their management, though bearing important responsibilities and involving important amounts of money, is not an easy task. Anyhow, most failures could be avoided if the program management would respect three basic principles, which are the following: 1-Subsidiarity principle Great programs may concern basically a local level: for instance a common transportation (metro or tram) in a city. In that case, its definition and management would be primarily municipal. It may concern a wider geographical zone, for instance a high-speed train. It may need coordination with other places, for instance an airport or a great scientific equipment. It may be concern several countries, for instance a dam on a big river crossing several countries. It may be worldwide, for instance the International space station, or the definition and conservation of metrological units, or the Internet protocols and root servers. It may be localised in a particular set of countries and concern the whole planet, for instance the biodiversity hot points: the tropical rainforest and the coral reefs. Obviously, the world administrative organization in nation states, regional or local authorities does not fit with the needs of 21st century. Anyhow, people have to take it as it is, and use them as intelligently as possible. Regarding great programs, intelligence would mean building the management of the program according prior to the needs of the program and consider the regional, national or local influences and authorities as second rank priorities. In most cases, a great program would need the building of a dedicated organization. This organization may be temporary, last the time of the building and then vanish or be transformed into another type of organization. Anyhow, it needs a professional management by people experienced in similar projects. The basic principle to keep it effective is the subsidiary principle: decisions have to be made at a level as close to practice as possible. It means that higher hierarchy has not to interfere under the level where sufficient information is available for decision making, depending of course of the decision involved. The role of the higher level is the one of the godfather: it consists primarily in cleaning the bureaucratic, institutional or even regulatory obstacles that might interfere with the project and threaten or slow down its realization. The persons involved in the program should always keep in mind that the project is not dedicated to the glory of any local political leader, but to the sake of mankind, according to the scarcity of the time left to adapt mankind to the emerging civilization. 2- Corruption free principle Operating a great program mobilizes important amounts of money and needs the agreement of several local authorities. Therefore the temptation to facilitate and speed up the operation using bribes is great, on the side of the operator as well as on the side of the local agreements at several levels. The measurement of such practices is a new academic discipline now in development. The scarce data available see http://www.transparency.org/ and the work of Esther Duflo at MIT and several cases that have been brought to courts. show that, in many cases, before reaching the workers who does the job, an important part of the funding has evaporated and a lot of time has been lost. Corruption interferes at all levels and generates a waste of time and a waste of money. When corruption reaches wide spread levels in the society, building a great programs becomes nearly unfeasible. But the real inconvenience of these usual practices overflows the diversion of money. Money is a tool, not a goal in itself. After all, banknotes are only pieces of paper. But a program aimed at building the future of children and nature ought to be supported for itself by the stakeholders and stay free of such pollutions. Corruption diverts the meaning of the project. Therefore it appears clearly that corruption is the worst enemy of great programs. Not only because it makes them more costly and slow down their implementation but above all because it corrupts inevitably the social involvement of the actors. Is it possible to eliminate corruption and how? The classical way is to strengthen the surveillance and penalties through legal requirements, using preferably the support of international organizations. But chasing the looters is not enough. It is more than necessary to educate the population. An important effort is needed to teach the coming generations that the service of the planet has a prior value than personal wealth. It should be taught as a contrast with the past decades, in which wealth accumulation has been considered as the only sign of success. 3-Respect of cultures principle One reminds the social movements that occurred when the Narita Airport serving Tokyo was put in operation. A demonstration was organised to protest because the sacrifices to the local spirits had not been properly made. Japan being one of the most advanced countries in science and technology, many observers were surprised and perceived it as the reminding of an archaic superstition. In practice, the sacrifices were made and everything went back to order. Modern ethnology points that this event has not to be considered as an “archaic superstition”, but as a genuine cultural approach of the relations with nature. And the fact it occurred in Japan shows that this approach is not at all incompatible with scientific rationality. Any society needs some kind of rituals to get used to novelty, particularly when this novelty is a great program, representing a collective effort and an evolution in the way of life. Therefore, the implementation of great programs should respect the local cultural approaches, which are very different from one place to the other around the planet. Of course, religions have their part in these cultural approaches. But they are not the only ones to determine them. The corpus of legends, the tales, the communication with animals and the treatment to plants are also part of it. Any great program should be enlightened by some ethnological in depth survey in order to provide an adequate meaning that fits the expectations of the local culture. Obviously, respect of local culture, due to the respect it gives to the program, may slow down the risk of corruption. Conclusion The new technology wave of 21st century appeals for a change in civilization. The deep foreseeable transformation is a shift from the industrial age to a cognitive civilization, driven by a universal communication network, integrating telephone, television and the Internet and aimed at a renewed symbiosis of human species with natural ecosystems. The hypothesis of such an evolution has been first formulated during the 80’s, and confirmed progressively by observation. It is a slow movement, due to the delay necessary to spread the technologies and also to the mutual adaptation of human beings to new tools and of new tools to human beings. The world population should grow up to approximately 8 billion and then slowly decrease, due to birth control, facilitating the settlement of a new equilibrium between human species and nature. It is likely that at the same time: -huge investments will be operated in reshaping cities, space programs and marine settlements -daily life will rely on shorter supply chains, local self sustainability. As a consequence, practical know how should be restored at the first place in education, which has formerly drifted to theory. Another consequence could be the use of regional, local or specialized moneys, based on confidence, protecting from the epilepsy of the world finance. Thierry Gaudin http://gaudin.org gaudin@2100.org  Short Bibliography Alvin and Heidi Toffler, Revolutionary wealth, Knopf, 2006. Alvin Toffler, The third wave, Bantam books, 1980. Towards Knowledge societies, UNESCO World report (dir Jérôme Bindé), UNESCO Publishing, 2005. Climate change assessment, IPCC fourth report, C/O World Meteorological Organization, 7bis Avenue de la Paix, C.P. 2300, CH- 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland or IPCC website http://www.ipcc.ch. Millenium ecosystems assessment, 4 Synthesis reports 2005, Island press. 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