The main objective of this resaerch project is to mobilise research on the governance of knowledge and on the role of knowledge in governance. ‘Knowledge’ is broadly defined to cover knowlegde production such as basic research, competence building through higher education, and applied and embodied knowledge in terms of innovation and technology. Knowledge is both an object of governance at various levels, from the global to the local, and a source of empowerment and thus of the power to govern. The project will emphasize research on these dual roles of knowledge at the international level and their interaction. It will focus research on the relationship between global and regional institutions and processes in the knowledge field: the internationalisation of national education, research and innovation systems; governance of access to and dissemination of knowledge.

In its first 18 months the project will survey past and present research on these objectives in preparation of a workshop, and mobilise new research on them through a combination of state-of-the-art overviews, theoretical work and a few case studies of sectors and regions as they relate to global governance in the various aspects of knowledge. Thus global institutions such as the WTO’s GATS and TRIPs, the patent agreements, the work in UNESCO and other relevant institutions will be objects of particular attention. Moreover national and in particular regional responses to selected sector processes will be focussed. As the push to liberalise markets for research, higher education and technology becomes stronger and the demand for market access hardens, national and regional ‘knowledge societies’ are also subject to increasing pressures, but also to new options and openings. Knowledge is increasingly being seen as a competitive advantage and hence an object of efforts to monopolize or dominate it. Several countries such as the United States and Australia have already established considerable export surpluses in higher education, and there are increased efforts across nations and corporations to attract the most competent innovation and technology personnel. The project will pool information and initiate analysis on how these factors and processes affect Europe and how Europeans as a regional collective respond and may respond to them. In so doing it will attempt to bring research on innovation and technology production and dissemination, so far mostly executed within uni-disciplinary and single-purpose frameworks, into close contact with pluri- and cross-disciplinary studies of political and economic institutions and of socio-cultural processes.

• Garnet Policy Update
  Knowledge, Intellectual Property Rights and Equity - The WTO's TRIPS Agreement and EU Policy
  Helge Hveem

• Helge Hveem, University of Oslo

• Universiteit van Amsterdam
• Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana
• Centre for the Study of Democracy
• The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies
• Centro di Ricerca di Economia Internazionale – Universita di Roma “La Sapienza”