Annual Report 2022

This report features Open AIR researchers’ extensive recent outputs—including books, book chapters, journal articles, reports, policy engagements, conference presentations, and blogs—in five thematic clusters, guided by four cross-cutting research lenses:

The five thematic clusters:

• high technology hubs
• informal innovation
• traditional knowledge and Indigenous entrepreneurs
• innovation metrics
• laws and policies

The four cross-cutting research lenses:

• economic integration, international law, and trade policy
• gender equality and empowerment of women and girls
• artificial intelligence (AI)
• the maker movement

Across all the work featured in the report, there is a strong mix of participation between senior Open AIR researchers, led by the Steering Committee members, and early-career scholars participating in the network’s New and Emerging Researchers Group (NERG).

Also outlined in this report is Open AIR’s new “Regulation for Innovation” research and engagement project, which is focused on identifying and fostering policy-legal-regulatory models that support the kinds of innovations needed to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Outcomes envisioned for this new Open AIR programme include:

• improved African participation in policy processes influencing regulation of knowledge for innovation
• improved African national utilisation of limits and flexibilities provided in existing regulatory instruments
• improved African use of alternative, openness-oriented models of innovation that can operate outside regulatory constraints