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Immense growth of science and technology policy studies in China during the last years. Definite trend towards more realistic policy approaches to science and technology in the country despite the appearance of frequent policy changes in the five years since Mao's death. Some key problems in China's technological economies. The influence of technological economists on the Chinese leadership. (DÜI-Sen)

The People's Republic of China has recently embarked upon a giant programme of modernization, and in the formulation of policies concerning, this industrial development, its leaders have repeatedly stressed the raising of the scientific and technological level of the personnel involved in Chinese industry as a prerequisite to the successful attainment of the desired goals. While the education of scientists and engineers in universities has been the subject of much attention in western studies, the widespread dissemination of scientific and technological information, a fundamental issue in the process of training personnel for industry, has been discussed mainly by the Chinese policy-makers themselves.

Research technology organizations (RTOs) are undergoing a transition in their traditional role. This transition is driven by two key shifts in the environment within which RTOs operate: increasing pressure to commercialise research outputs and the internationalisation of the research endeavor, providing new opportunities for both funding and transfer of outputs. We note that these trends are felt in both industrialised and industrialising economies, acknowledging a need for properly framed comparative studies. Among the key questions addressed here: How do open, global R&D networks affect RTO research portfolios? Does building national resources reduce international opportunities? Can Asian RTOs reorient their operations from doing basic research to producing commercialisable outputs as effectively as some of their European counterparts? Before reviewing important developments in the RTO literature, we distinguish several types of RTOs. The literature reflecting the abovementioned environmental shifts indicates that RTOs play an important role in helping industrialising economies catch up with their industrialised counterparts. We note also the role RTOs play in transferring university research outputs, and call for more studies of the role of RTOs in industrialization as opposed to agricultural development. We close with brief descriptions of the five studies that comprise this special issue.

ABSTRACTThis article examines the effectiveness of UNIDO in addressing the challenges of environmental degradation and in helping developing countries promote sustainable development paths. The analysis suggests that the slow process of integrating environmental concerns in UNIDO's activities was affected both by internal organizational factors, such as the shared professional values in UNIDO's institutional culture and its organizational flexibility and responsiveness, and by factors relating to the external context, including financial constraints and interagency conflicts. In contrast to studies of successful persuasion of 'epistemic communities' in international negotiations, this article looks at the factors which have impeded the process of persuasion. At the theoretical level, it seeks to analyse the difficulties of changing the policy agenda in a specific international organization.

Was it a result of domestic political changes or of developments in international environmental politics? While the decision to introduce comprehensive modern environmental policies in China has had arguably a long-term impact on environmental governance, few studies have scrutinised the early decision-making process. This article attempts to address the void in scholarship. Adopting the multiple streams framework, the authors argue that the origins of environmental policy in China arose from the confluence of three streams—problem identification, political tensions and policy choices—under Premier Zhou Enlai's sponsorship. The new ecological perspective arising from the environmental policy emphasises scientific principles and technocratic solutions, lending a contrast to an ideological approach that had characterised the previous decades. This process was accompanied by the new political role of an environmentalist group consisting primarily of bureaucrats and scientists who mobilised international experience to identify appropriate technological solutions. This article analytically traces the historical context, problem identification, policy entrepreneurship and key policy instruments that characterised the first phase of Chinese environmental policies. The authors discuss the extent to which key elements of China's environmental policies today may still be shaped by the technocratic approach in the initial phase. (China/GIGA)

As the global economy focuses increasingly on Asia, Hong Kong's role as an intermediary between China and the rest of the world merits investigation. In view of the increasing importance of knowledge-based business services and Hong Kong's recent drive to promote innovation and high-tech services, economists and policy makers must understand Hong Kong's capacity to support economic development in the Asian region. Following a theoretically informed discussion of the role of information technology (IT) services within the broader category of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS), Hong Kong's IT services sector is described and analysed to determine its potential for supporting an innovative local services environment and to identify the key opportunities and challenges involved in further developing the sector. In-depth interviews of important actors in the IT services sector in Hong Kong and case studies of firms that have leveraged IT services supplement our analysis of data on IT service production and usage. IT services represents an opportunity through which Hong Kong can use targeted policy to drive growth and expand and deepen economic relations with Mainland China.