Open Access

In the recently concluded ‘African Ministerial Conference: Intellectual Property for an Emerging Africa’ organized in part by WIPO (here), one cannot help but think that all roads leading to creativity and innovation are paved with intellectual property (IP) laws and institutions. Put differently, the level of creativity and innovation in a society is dependent solely on how we tinker with and enforce IP laws. This ‘IP parochialism’, as I call it, is manifest in the conference program. Of course, the response would be that the conference was solely about IP and as such there was no need to look beyond IP. This is an erroneous view.

This 2013 book is the product of three years of literature reviews, expert interviews and scenario-building exercises by the Open AIR network. The authors trace the contours of knowledge and innovation in Africa from the founding civilisations to today’s current realities, and then set out the drivers of change that can be expected to shape innovation systems on the continent between now and the year 2035.

By Eashan Karnik, cross-posted from Smart Prosperity Institute The need to adopt clean energy technologies is a pressing issue not just in Canada, but internationally...

Authored by: Jeremy de Beer Abstract: Governments have long been interested in making intellectual property (IP) policy based on sound evidence. There is a large...

How can farmers and researchers use open data to work together for food security? Open data and other forms of open access to knowledge help facilitate these relationships.

Agricultural data is a vital resource in the effort to address food insecurity. This data is used across the food-production chain. For example, farmers rely on agricultural data to decide when to plant crops, scientists use data to conduct research on pests and design disease resistant plants, and governments make policy based on land use data. As the value of agricultural data is understood, there is a growing call for governments and firms to open their agricultural data.

Hani Morsi, an Open AIR Post-Doctoral fellow at the Access to Knowledge for Development Center (A2K4D) in Cairo, gave a seminar last week entitled “Beyond openness: Investigating the success factors of open approaches to collaboration and innovation”. This was part of the Brown Bag seminar series of AUC’s School of Business.

Par Abdelhamid Benhmade À quelques semaines près, l’Organisation mondiale du commerce tiendra sa douzième conférence ministérielle pour discuter de plusieurs dossiers tant complexes qu’épineux, entre...

Jeremy de Beer, Chris Armstrong, Chidi Oguamanam et Tobias Schonwetter Date de publication : septembre 2017 Télécharger: Chapitre 16 : La propriété intellectuelle...

By Victor Nzomo In the midst of two decades of TRIPS and three decades of openness, more than 400 delegates from over 50 countries converged...