1. Universities and Councils
Network for Innovation
for Inclusive Development
in Southeast Asia
Segundo Romero, Cecile Reyes
and Grace Santos
February 2012
www.ibopasia.net

2. SEA Map – National Boundaries

3. Regional Contexts: Southeast Asia
• Impressive economic growth and
poverty reduction over the last 2-3
decades; but rising income and non-
income inequalities (Gini coefficients:
0.34-0.44);
• Notions like social justice, equality and
human rights are not deeply embedded
in the social and political structures (cf.
Latin America). Development =
economic growth and social goals are
secondary objectives of government
policy. This has implications for
inclusive development;
• Some progression towards pluralism
and democracy – esp. Indonesia– but
regression in Malaysia, Thailand and
Cambodia. Leadership models remain
February 2012
largely paternalistic;

4. Regional Contexts: Southeast Asia
• Significant innovations and innovation
capabilities are becoming more evident
in Asia (esp. Asian Driver economies:
China and India), but also in Southeast
Asia (Singapore, Malaysia and
Thailand).
• Innovation and innovation policy are
geared towards industrial development
and economic development, and less
towards with social and inclusive
development.
February 2012

5. Innovation and Development
• The innovation trajectory which has engendered rapid
growth in SEA (most evident in Singapore, Malaysia, and
Thailand) has tended to exclude the informal economy on
which the poor depend for their livelihoods (e.g. agriculture
and other primary sector activities), and the social challenges
that they face; a situation that has exacerbated inequality and
poverty.
• SEA countries need to shift to a different innovation trajectory
where communities that are spatially, socially and
economically disadvantaged become equal partners,
contributing their knowledge about opportunities and
constraints.

6. NIS Main Elements

7. A NEW PERSPECTIVE:
Innovation for Inclusive Development (IID)
IID is understood as “innovation that reduces poverty
and enables as many groups of people, especially the
poor and vulnerable, to participate in decision-making,
create and actualize opportunities, and share the
benefits of development.”

8. Intermediaries in IID
• Research supported by iBoP Asia showed
that key to IID is the role of intermediaries
that enable poor communities through
knowledge and skills and connect them to
formal institutions and markets to gain
access to technologies, products and services
that address their specific needs.

9. TYPES OF IID INTERMEDIARIES
DIRECT INTERMEDIARIES
are those that can directly
promote, drive and produce
FORMAL innovations for and with the INFORMAL
ECONOMY informal economy. ECONOMY
National and local government units,
private firms/ enterprises, NGOs
SUPPORT INTERMEDIARIES
are those that can catalyze existing and new knowledge and
support new capacity- and competency-building in innovation
among direct intermediaries in the formal and informal economy.
International development agencies, research and policy bodies, universities, think tanks
GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE NETWORKS
(e.g. GLOBELICS, scholarly publications, academic exchanges)

10. Strengths of the Universities
as a Support Intermediaries
• Huge and diversified pool of scholars and experts;
• Professional and competency development and
accreditation;
• Knowledge creation and sharing (research studies,
dissertations and theses, conference papers, etc.);
• Modeling and mirroring of reality (descriptive, explanatory,
and prescriptive);
• Convening power – bringing development actors and target
beneficiaries in habitual conversation on development
issues;
• Policy advice to governments, private enterprises, NGOs and
CBOs, and foreign and local grant orgs.

11. Strengths of Research Councils
as Support Intermediaries
• Designed to give policy advice to government;
• Mandated to develop and promote a national and sectoral
research agenda;
• Equipped with substantive funds for research grants in
support of research agendas and capacity building;
• Access to knowledge and academic resources of their
specific countries;
• Access to their counterpart councils abroad and to
international networks (e.g. ASEAN);
• Access to adequate organic staff and expert resources;
• Prestige and influence over government, non-governmental
and international development sectors.

12. Universities and Research Councils
as Support Intermediaries
• Universities (with their 3 core missions of teaching,
research and extension) and Councils (with their
research and policy agenda-setting, advisory and
research funding roles) are important innovation
system actors;
• Research and innovation in universities in the region
are still largely oriented towards industrial and
economic development and inadequately focused on
social and inclusive development;
• Councils do not adequately formulate policies, give
policy advice, set research agenda and fund research
towards innovation for IID.

13. Universities for IID: Inward Challenges and Response Strategies
Challenges Potential Response Strategies
1. Not designed to be innovative, Create integrative mechanisms for:
inclusive, nor development-oriented • Outcome-oriented engagements with real
groups and communities in the informal
2. Geared towards individual capabilities,
economy
not collective development
• Multi-disciplinary, field-engaged
coursework
3. Highly fragmented organizations (into
• Multi-disciplinary IID program and project-
functions, disciplines, and ranks)
oriented institutes (Innovation Centres,
Think tanks)
4. Short-term activity cycles (classes,
semesters, courses) Define and create multidisciplinary fields (e.g.,
IID) to engage in:
5. Few long-term programmatic • Forward integration (knowledge assets into
engagements informal economy)
6. Incentive system (e.g., publish or • Backward integration (lessons from
perish schemes) promotes attentiveness informal economy into the classroom)
to foreign theories, models, and research • Theory-building (shared understanding of
problems the whole IID process)

14. Universities for IID: Outward Challenges and Response Strategies
Challenges Potential Response Strategies
1. Academic autonomy translates • Enhance interoperability with primary
into isolation from governments, intermediaries for IID through
enterprises, NGOs and POs, and partnership-building and functional,
grant-giving institutions program, and project partnerships
• Embed outcome mapping and
2. Limited working relationships with performance management to link inputs
primary intermediaries to outcomes and rewards to work in
enhancing its own IID-capabilities and
that of the primary intermediaries
3. No framework for systematic • Create, network, and enlarge pool of IID
inter-university, inter-country capable universities within countries
knowledge management, resource and then the region
pooling and sharing, and networking i. Tap existing networks
for IID ii. Build early linkages with UNIID-SA,
Africa, and LAC to fast-track learning)

15. UNIID-SEA Goals
 Motivate and capacitate pivot universities in participating countries to lead in
rethinking and redesigning university core missions and operations in
teaching, research and extension to render them IID-capable;
 Motivate and capacitate pivot Councils in participating countries to lead in re-
thinking and re-designing network core missions and operations in research
agenda setting, granting, and policy advice to render them IID-capable;
 Facilitate the complementation of Universities and Councils in knowledge
creation, sharing, and translation into IID-oriented policy;
 Create opportunities for IID–oriented collaboration and partnerships among
intermediaries towards more effective IID engagements with the informal
economy;
 Build an UNIID-SEA Network of Universities and Councils with linkages to
other UNIID networks (South Africa, Latin America and South Asia).

16. UNIID-SEA Structure and Partnerships

17. Key Year 1 Project Activities
2012
Major Project Activities
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Conduct a baseline study of councils and
universities in SEA
Establish information and knowledge
sharing platforms
Project Launch and Planning Workshop
with partners
Develop IID course module
Implement competitive research grants
program in universities
Hold capacity building workshop for
councils
Submit report to IDRC

20. Key Activities of UNIID-SEA
• Conduct baseline study for assessing project outcomes;
• Build an integrative IEC platform for sharing and collaboration
• Undertake IID-oriented capacity-building activities for
universities and councils;
• Develop and pilot an IID Course Module in participating
universities;
• Promote collaborative research projects on informal economy
innovations (e.g. competitive grants);
• Create formal and informal linkages among Universities and
Councils and between them and other innovation and
development actors;
• Link with other UNIID networks.

21. National Innovation Systems (NIS) in Southeast Asia
Group 1 (“Structured”): Well established and advanced NIS. Singapore and China;
Group 2 (“Fractional”): Weak innovation systems. Some missing links and/or
weaknesses within NIS but remedial mechanisms and programs being implemented.
Economies are continuously developing their S&T infrastructures. Specialised
institutional units established to monitor advancement of R&D, linkages among
sectors and technology commercialisation. Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand and the
Philippines;
Group 3 (“Entry”): Just beginning to develop NIS. S&T infrastructures
underdeveloped. Innovation in enterprises still basic but some remedial mechanisms
in place. Indonesia, Lao PDR, Vietnam and Cambodia;
Group 4 (“Unstructured”): No established NIS. Innovation management new
concept and factors such as institutional arrangements, competencies of manpower,
and investment in S&T infrastructure are still being designed. Myanmar and Timor-
Leste.
Source: SEA Megacities project
February 2012