Dr Ju­dith M S Mark

In the first is­sue of this com­men­tary se­ries, the case was made for a well-de­fined coun­try-in­no­va­tion mod­el, giv­en T&T’s low po­si­tion in the glob­al in­no­va­tion in­dex (GII). A pos­i­tive out­come of the first ar­ti­cle was the ex­tent to which it stim­u­lat­ed dis­cus­sions on the ini­tia­tives un­der­tak­en to date to fos­ter in­no­va­tion in T&T, and why it is nec­es­sary for in­no­va­tion to be at the fore­front of na­tion­al di­a­logue on di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and growth of the T&T econ­o­my. Of con­cern, how­ev­er, was why T&T, a coun­try that placed high in the rank­ings with re­spect to hu­man cap­i­tal, was ranked low­ly at 108th over­all out of 133 coun­tries in the glob­al in­no­va­tion in­dex.

In this is­sue I take a clos­er look at the hu­man cap­i­tal and re­search in­di­ca­tor used by GII to pro­vide fur­ther in­sights on T&T’s po­si­tion in this area. Hu­man cap­i­tal is deemed to be the most im­por­tant coun­try-lev­el in­no­va­tion in­put fac­tor, giv­en that a coun­try’s great­est as­set is its peo­ple. In the GII re­port, re­search is linked with hu­man cap­i­tal in a sin­gle in­di­ca­tor. Hu­man cap­i­tal and re­search are col­lec­tive­ly re­spon­si­ble for the knowl­edge, skills, cre­ativ­i­ty, and crit­i­cal think­ing that have led to in­no­va­tions in prod­ucts, ser­vices, tech­nol­o­gy, process­es, or busi­ness mod­els for or­gan­i­sa­tions of all sizes and with­in vary­ing in­dus­tries glob­al­ly.

In or­der to en­sure that a coun­try’s stock of hu­man cap­i­tal is rel­e­vant and ad­e­quate for fu­ture needs, em­pha­sis must be placed on the poli­cies and in­sti­tu­tions cre­at­ed to en­sure a knowl­edge­able work­force. There must al­so be con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween en­ter­prise and acad­e­mia as well as a com­mit­ment by Gov­ern­ment to al­lo­cate re­sources for re­search and de­vel­op­ment. T&T’s favourable po­si­tion­ing of 37th in the hu­man cap­i­tal and re­search rank­ing is pri­mar­i­ly due to its per­for­mance with re­spect to the lev­el of ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion, and more so its po­si­tion­ing with re­spect to the per­cent­age of grad­u­ates in sci­ence and en­gi­neer­ing.

NI­HERST con­tin­ues to be at the fore­front in the de­vel­op­ment of STEM com­pe­tence in T&T. The or­gan­i­sa­tion has done so, us­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tive mod­el that in­cludes cor­po­rate T&T, non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions, ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners. NI­HERST’s ini­tia­tives are al­so geared to­wards chil­dren of all ages, a strat­e­gy that al­lows for ear­ly ex­po­sure to STEM ed­u­ca­tion. To op­ti­mise the re­turn on in­vest­ment in STEM ed­u­ca­tion, how­ev­er, stu­dents must be equipped to con­vert STEM knowl­edge and skills to items of val­ue. The pres­ence of ed­u­cat­ed cit­i­zens has mean­ing in an in­no­va­tion ecosys­tem on­ly when the STEM-ed­u­cat­ed in­di­vid­u­als pos­sess the crit­i­cal think­ing and cre­ative skills re­quired to ex­tract wealth from knowl­edge. The need for hands-on, prac­ti­cal ap­proach­es to solv­ing prob­lems through the in­clu­sion of artis­tic and cre­ative ex­pres­sions in STEM ed­u­ca­tion is re­quired for ideas to flour­ish, hence the in­tro­duc­tion of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy, En­gi­neer­ing, Arts and Math­e­mat­ics (STEAM) ed­u­ca­tion.

The dif­fer­ence how­ev­er, be­tween T&T’s strong po­si­tion­ing in Sci­ence and En­gi­neer­ing com­pared to the low rat­ings over­all on the in­no­va­tion in­dex is tied to gaps in the eco-sys­tem in­clud­ing but not lim­it­ed to in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty pro­tec­tion, ac­cess to start­up cap­i­tal, ac­cess to da­ta and funds for re­search. Should T&T not seek to ad­dress these gaps, the coun­try may find it­self be in a sit­u­a­tion where its in­vest­ment in knowl­edge cre­ation, yields greater ben­e­fits ex­ter­nal­ly, due to brain drain.

CARIRI is al­so at the fore­front of tal­ent de­vel­op­ment to sup­port in­no­va­tion. Through its suite of ser­vices, the state in­sti­tu­tion has as­sist­ed en­tre­pre­neur­ial com­pa­nies and in­di­vid­u­als in man­ag­ing the process from ideation to com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion. Projects like The Shap­ing the Fu­ture of In­no­va­tion Project, the Youth In­no­va­tion Lab, Idea to In­no­va­tion (i2i) and ini­tia­tives aimed at the com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of in­no­va­tion have con­tributed to the de­vel­op­ment of the tal­ent pool nec­es­sary for in­no­va­tion.

“A coun­try’s re­search ca­pac­i­ty is a di­rect ex­pres­sion of how it de­vel­ops, de­ploys, and re­tains tal­ent.” T&T’s R&D ex­pen­di­ture which amounts to .05 per cent of GDP mir­rors that of many Latin Amer­i­ca and Caribbean (LAC) coun­tries but is con­sid­ered low in a glob­al con­text. For this re­gion Brazil is the leader at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1.1 per cent. Giv­en the sig­nif­i­cance of re­search to a coun­try’s in­no­va­tion ca­pac­i­ty, con­sid­er­a­tion ought to be giv­en to in­crease the per­cent­age of GDP al­lo­cat­ed to R&D.

It has been said that what gets mea­sured gets done. A coun­try in­no­va­tion mod­el should al­low for time­ly and ac­cu­rate col­lec­tion of da­ta as well as the de­vel­op­ment of tools to man­age and mea­sure in­no­va­tion. ISO 56001 de­vel­oped by the In­ter­na­tion­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Stan­dard­iza­tion in 2024 is a glob­al stan­dard in the man­age­ment of or­ga­ni­za­tion­al in­no­va­tion. The aim is to pro­vide a stan­dard frame­work that guides or­ga­ni­za­tions in the de­vel­op­ment and man­age­ment of their in­no­va­tion agen­das. The recog­ni­tion of this stan­dard by the Bu­reau of Stan­dards is proof of its im­por­tance as a tool to dri­ve or­ga­ni­za­tion­al in­no­va­tion. It is pro­posed that the gov­ern­ment adopts this stan­dard and be a strong ad­vo­cate for its use. This will pro­vide a mea­sure of uni­for­mi­ty in in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the na­tion­al in­no­va­tion agen­da as well and in how da­ta is col­lect­ed, analysed, and re­port­ed.

T&T’s low rank­ing over­all on the GII is not in­dica­tive of de­fi­cien­cy in per­for­mance by all in­sti­tu­tions in­volved in fa­cil­i­tat­ing the in­no­va­tion agen­da. How­ev­er, greater co­or­di­na­tion among in­sti­tu­tions, the avail­abil­i­ty and use of da­ta for de­ci­sion mak­ing, and greater em­pha­sis on re­search, sup­port­ed by knowl­edge­able and skilled cit­i­zens are nec­es­sary.

A na­tion­al in­no­va­tion ar­chi­tec­ture cre­at­ed with the in­put of stake­hold­ers in acad­e­mia, pri­vate sec­tor, com­mu­ni­ty-based or­gan­i­sa­tions, and gov­ern­ment is ur­gent­ly re­quired to equip T&T to re­spond to glob­al chal­lenges. The un­cer­tain and ever-chang­ing geopo­lit­i­cal land­scape presents chal­lenges but al­so op­por­tu­ni­ties to in­no­vate at all lev­els. T&T through its in­sti­tu­tions is now ex­pect­ed to chal­lenge the sta­tus quo, forge re­la­tion­ships with non-tra­di­tion­al trad­ing part­ners and pur­sue non-tra­di­tion­al mar­kets for its ex­ports.

While gov­ern­ment is ex­pect­ed to take the lead role in dri­ving the in­no­va­tion agen­da at the macro lev­el as chief ar­chi­tect and en­abler, it is the ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion of the pri­vate sec­tor, acad­e­mia, and com­mu­ni­ty groups that pro­vide the stim­u­lant for fu­ture-ori­ent­ed and con­tin­u­ous in­no­va­tion at all lev­els of so­ci­ety. This cou­pled with in­ter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tions can dri­ve the na­tion­al in­no­va­tion agen­da.

Whether or not the ap­proach out­lined in this ar­ti­cle are un­der­tak­en de­pends on the role played b the or­ches­tra­tor of re­sources. In the cre­ation and im­ple­men­ta­tion of a fu­ture-cen­tric coun­try in­no­va­tion mod­el in which T&T’s glob­al brand is de­fined, en­tre­pre­neur­ial lead­er­ship mat­ters.