Martin Kenney interviews Beyond Technonationalism author Kathryn Ibata-Arens
Martin Kenney: What made you write this book?
Kathryn Ibata-Arens: Before we get started, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to have this conversation about my book Beyond Technonationalism: Biomedical Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Asia, and to be among the excellent books in your series Innovation and Technology in the World Economy. The path that led me to this book began in the mid-1990s starting as a Fulbright dissertation fellow at Tokyo University, followed by my first book on Japan’s high technology entrepreneurs. Since then, I have witnessed the struggles of entrepreneurs in Japan to obtain venture capital and invest in new product research and development. This is puzzling because Japan continues to lead the world in innovation, for example in patents and Nobel Prize worthy science and technology. Meanwhile, China, India, and even city-state Singapore have caught-up and in some cases leapfrogged over Japan in new technology entrepreneurship. The research started with the question: why is this?
MK: How would you define networked technonationalism for someone unfamiliar with the term?
KI: Thank you for asking. “Techno-nationalism” is the idea that a country’s national security depends on its ability to gain and maintain technology leadership in key sectors of the economy.
MK: How does global competition factor into the biomedical and new-technology sectors?
KI: In the biomedical industry in particular – pharmaceuticals, genomics, stem cell therapies, and medical devices – countries aim to not only lead in global market share for their products, but also set international standards, making their products the de facto global standard around which other products must conform, or fit (and thus ensuring market dominance for decades in the future).
MK: What did you consider the greatest challenge of writing the book? What was most surprising?
KI: I did a lot of traveling to China, India, Japan, and Singapore over the course of six years and meeting with earnest government officials, innovative scientists, and risk-taking entrepreneurs (I also had interesting encounters with wildlife of all kinds, in the roads, and on my dinner plate). Living out of carry-on luggage for months at a time – most often during the hot and relentlessly rainy summer monsoon season in Asia – and missing my children were the greatest challenges. The most surprising was how radically different the traditions in medicine and medical research are across countries and even more so between Asian and Anglo-European ways of thinking about human health and healing. These differences have had profound impacts on the types of drugs and therapies that have been targeted for development and growth.
MK: Now that the book is out are there any reactions or questions from readers that you have particularly enjoyed or been intrigued by?
KI: I have been on a quasi-book tour since last October, discussing the findings with audiences from think tanks in Washington, D.C. to groups of doctoral students in Paris, and in Asia. A number of people have proudly declared themselves part of their countries’ global diaspora talent, and asked how the framework of networked techno-nationalism (NTN) (harnessing international diaspora and other connections in the service of national economic development goals) might apply to such countries as Korea and Vietnam. I am also intrigued by how South East Asian and North East Asian innovation and entrepreneurial systems compare on a regional level. I had someone at a book talk in New York ask me what I would recommend to the government of Bhutan. My response to that was “I have no idea, but would be fascinated to explore it further.”
In the biomedical industry in particular – pharmaceuticals, genomics, stem cell therapies, and medical devices – countries aim to not only lead in global market share for their products, but also set international standards
MK: What impact do you hope your book has?
KI: Ideally the book will stimulate a conversation, and future research on the transnational aspects of national innovation systems and new product and new business creation, especially the appropriate role of national government policy in encouraging innovations for improving human health and global healthcare.
MK: Do you think this applies to other countries to which to extend the theory?
KI: I would be delighted to see other scholars extend the networked technonational (NTN) framework to study policy and business activities in other countries and regions, including in the developing world. I wonder if some of the entrepreneurial case studies in the book, Biocon in India, Beijing Genomics in China, will continue to rise as new kinds of national champions, and further, have counterparts in other parts of the world.
MK: You wrote about biotech, do you think this is applicable to other technology industries and in what ways?
KI: Yes, I think the networked technonational framework has broad applications. Techno-nationalism has been studied previously in the context of so-called strategic industries including military defense technologies. Other industries too are ripe for empirical testing. The first that comes to mind is mobile technologies, with the recent questions about the national security implications of the 5G standard set by China, and concerns about the domestic exposure of consumers and companies to potential “back-door” access to sensitive information when using China’s Huawei devices. At the end of the day, will economic leaders in non-democratic societies defer to the political dictate of their central governments? Alternatively, environmentally sustainable economic development (e.g. biodiversity resource management; averting possible “water wars”) is a concern that unifies governments across national boundaries, and transnational scientific networks are critical in finding mutually beneficial solutions, reducing shared costs, and improving collective security.
MK: Any follow-on projects or related research in-the-works?
KI: Yes, long-story, but I had a life changing moment in the course of this book’s research, inspiring a follow-on project exploring inclusive innovation practices in new drug discovery and research and development of medicines the context of global intellectual property rights (IPR). Related theoretical inspiration derives from the groundbreaking work in (innovation) commons, of such scholars as Elinor Ostrom and Joseph Stiglitz. I am fortunate to be on research (sabbatical) leave until September 2020 to pursue my next book project.
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