Center for Science, Technology and Innovation in China
The Levin Institute’s Center for Science, Technology & Innovation in China (CSTIC), the first center of its kind (outside mainland China), was created in 2004 to better understand China’s increased prominence in the fields of science, technology, and innovation. CSTIC will also study the impact and implications of science and technology (S&T) developments in the PRC, such as global competition, sustainable growth, international security, and worldwide S&T progress. The Center serves as a platform for bringing together experts and scholars from around the world, including China.
The Center conducts research, offers professional training, and promotes cooperation focused on analyzing Chinese capabilities, resources, strategies, and policies related to science, technology, innovation and relevant fields in China. Based on solid working relations with the China’s Ministry of Science & Technology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and leading Chinese universities, the Center has been building a first-rate Chinese-material library focused on S&T policy and innovation in China, including large numbers of important statistical yearbooks, monographs, and other documents. Having such Chinese materials, perhaps the most comprehensive collection of outside mainland China, readily available has helped to facilitate research conducted at the Center.
GOALS
The Center focuses on four core activities:
- Research: The Center will assess China’s strategic national research programs, its current and future research and development (R&D) capabilities, and the quantity and caliber of the science and engineering talent pool. Areas of study include university−industry cooperation and collaboration in R&D, regional S&T developments, the evolving role of high-tech zones and clusters, and the study of comparative S&T developments regarding China and India and the other economies in the Pacific Rim. In the near term, the Center will be focusing on its research on industrial innovation in China.
- Professional Training: The Levin Institute offers professional training programs in global technology management, comparative S&T policy studies, international S&T relations, and science, technology and society studies. The Center also serves as a host for PhD students (6−12 month visits), who seek to work with some of the in-residence experts and visiting scholars.
- Policy-Related Programs, Outreach and Scholarly Dissemination: The Center serves as an active platform for addressing pressing commercial, public policy, and academic issues with regard to the development of Chinese science and technology policy and its global implications. It holds various sessions to discuss emerging issues on innovation and China. Its scholars publish their research in international, peer-reviewed journals and are regular speakers at seminars and workshops on innovation in China, which are held worldwide. The Center plans to launch its own publications as well.
- China Studies and Social Science Link: The Center builds collaborative relationships with China study centers and think tanks in the U.S. and abroad to promote the exchange of ideas and research.
PARTNERSHIP
The Center seeks a variety of educational partnerships and alliances; it also serves as a high-quality resource for industry as well as government in assessing emerging S&T developments in China. It is governed by an international advisory board that reflects its multiple constituencies – academia, government, business, and NGOs.
LEADERSHIP
Cong Cao, Ph.D.
Director
Cong Cao, a Senior Research Fellow at the Levin Institute, is one of the leading scholars in the study of science, technology, and innovation in China.
Having studied in both China and the U.S. and in both natural and social science, he received his Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University in 1997 and has worked at the University of Oregon and the National University of Singapore.
Dr. Cao is interested in the social studies of science and technology with a focus on China. He is the author of China’s Scientific Elite (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon 2004), a study of those Chinese scientists holding honorific membership in the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and China’s Emerging Technological Edge: Assessing the Role of High-End Talent (with Denis Fred Simon, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009). His journal publications have appeared in Science, China Quarterly, Asian Survey, Minerva, among others.
Denis Fred Simon, Ph.D.
Senior Research Fellow
Denis Fred Simon, founding director of CSTIC, is now Professor of International Affairs at the Pennsylvania State University. Previously, he was Levin Institute’s Provost and Vice-President for Academic Affairs, Dean of the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and on the full-time faculties of the Fletcher School at Tufts University and the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
A successful businessman who also has provided leadership and development direction to national and international entities, Professor Simon is a past president of the Monitor Group (China) Ltd. in Beijing and the founder and former president of China Consulting Associates in Boston. He also has served as managing director of the Business Strategy and Innovation Center for Scient International in Singapore, and as director of the China Strategy Group and general manager for Anderson Consulting in Beijing.
A frequent advisor to global corporations and the U.S. government, Professor Simon is a member of the China Project Team at the Council on Competitiveness; the Advisory Committee on United States Science and Technology Cooperation with China of the National Science Foundation; and the Board of Directors of the United States-Israel Science and Technology Foundation. He also has worked closely on several projects with the National Academy of Sciences and on the National Innovation Initiative for the Council on Competitiveness.
The government of the People’s Republic of China recognized Professor Simon’s extensive contributions to U.S.–China science and technology relations by selecting him in 2006 to receive the China National Friendship Award, the highest award granted by the Chinese government to a foreign expert. He also received the 2005 Xinghai Friendship Award and the 2006 Liaoning Province Friendship Award for his contributions to the development of science and technology in Dalian. In 2008, he was awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of Dalian. In addition, he holds honorary professorships at several prestigious Chinese universities.
Professor Simon is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Association for Asian Studies, and the National Committee for U.S.–China Relations, as well as an associate member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing.
Professor Simon has written and lectured widely regarding innovation, high-tech development, foreign investment and corporate strategy in the Pacific Rim and is frequently quoted in the Western and Asian business press regarding commercial and technology trends in China, HK and the Asia-Pacific region. Among his key publications are Technological Innovation in China (with Detlef Rehn, Harper Books, 1987), Science and Technology in Post-Mao China (edited with Merle Goldman, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), The Emerging Technological Trajectory of the Pacific Rim (edited, Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe, 1995), Corporate Strategies Towards the Pacific Rim (edited, London and New York: Routledge, 1996), Techno-Security in an Age of Globalization (edited, Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe, 1997), and China’s Emerging Technological Edge: Assessing the Role of High-End Talent (with Cong Cao, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
Professor Simon received his M.A. degree in Asian Studies in 1975 and Ph.D. in political science in 1980, both from the University of California, Berkeley.
CSTIC ACTIVITIES
Conferences
“Science, Technology, and International Relations in the Era of Globalization: The Role of Education and Innovation,” organized with Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO [University]), Moscow, Russia, April 2006.
“Operation, Performance, and Prospects for China’s Industrial Innovation System: Impact of Reform and Globalization,” organized with China’s Ministry of Science and Technology and the Council on Foreign Relations, New York City, July 2006.
“The Dragon and the Elephant: Understanding the Innovation Capacity in China and India,” organized with the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy of National Academies, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Urban Institute, and Athena Alliance, Washington, DC, September 2007.
Visiting Chinese Scholars
FAN Houming, professor of management, Dalian Maritime University, December 2006 to December 2007.
QU Lili, doctoral student of management, Dalian Maritime University, January to July 2008
YE Zheng, Jason, doctoral student of management, University of Science and Technology of China, August 2007 to July 2008.
HUANG Tao, associate professor of science, technology, and society, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, August 2008 to February 2009.
Books
Yefei Sun, Max von Zedtwitz, and Denis Fred Simon (eds.). 2008. Global R&D in China. London and New York: Routledge (It also was published as a Special Issue of Asia Pacific Business Review in 2007).
http://www.routledgebusiness.com/books/Global-RD-in-China-isbn9780415418515
Denis Fred Simon and Cong Cao. 2009. China’s Emerging Technological Edge: Assessing the Role of High-End Talent. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
https://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521885133
Papers in Peer-Reviewed Journals
Richard P. Suttmeier, Cong Cao, and Denis Fred Simon. 2006. “‘Knowledge Innovation’ and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.” Science 312 (April 7):58−59.
Cong Cao, Richard P. Suttmeier, and Denis Fred Simon. 2006. “China’s 15-Year Science and Technology Plan.” Physics Today December:38−43.
Richard P. Suttmeier, Cong Cao, and Denis Fred Simon. 2006. “China’s Innovation Challenge and the Remaking of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.” Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization 1(3):78−97.
Cong Cao. 2008. “China’s Brain Drain and Brain Gain: Why Government Policies Have Failed to Attract First-Rate Talent to Return?” Asian Population Studies 4:331−345.
Papers in Edited Volumes
Bihui Jin, Ronald Rousseau, Richard P. Suttmeier, and Cong Cao. 2007. “The Role of Ethnic Ties in International Collaboration: The Overseas Chinese Phenomenon.” Pp. 427−436 in Proceedings of the ISSI 2007(11th International Conference of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics), edited by Daniel Torres-Salinas and Henk F. Moed. Madrid, Spain: The Centre for Scientific Information and Documentation of the Spanish Research Council.
Denis Fred Simon and Cong Cao. 2008. “China’s Emerging Science and Technology Talent Pool: A Quantitative and Qualitative Assessment.” Pp. 83−110 in Education for Innovation: Implications for India, China and America, edited by Robert L. DeHaan and K. M. Venkat Narayan. Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Cong Cao. 2009. “Toward a Better Understanding of China’s Scientific Elite.” Pp. 217−230 in Great China’s Question for Innovation, edited by Henry S. Rowen, Marguerite Gong Hancock, and William F. Miller. Stanford, CA: Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University, distributed by Brookings Institution Press.
Denis Fred Simon and Cong Cao. 2009. “China’s Emerging Science and Technology Talent Pool: A Quantitative and Qualitative Assessment.” Pp. 181−196 in Great China’s Question for Innovation, edited by Henry S. Rowen, Marguerite Gong Hancock, and William F. Miller. Stanford, CA: Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University, distributed by Brookings Institution Press.
Cong Cao, Richard P. Suttmeier, and Denis Fred Simon. 2009. “Success in State Directed Innovation? Perspectives on China’s Plan for the Development of Science and Technology.” Pp. 247−264 in New Asian Dynamics in Science, Technology and Innovation, edited by Govindan Parayil and Anthony P. D’Costa. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Richard Appelbaum, Rachel Parker, Cong Cao, and Gary Gereffi. 2009. “China’s Not-So-Hidden Development State: Challenges to Becoming a Leading Nanotechnology Innovator in the 21st Century.” In Half Empty and Half Full: Understanding How the U.S. Maintains Its Global Technological Leadership, edited by Fred Block.
Minor Publications
Cong Cao. 2007. “The Frog Leaps.” China-British Business Review April:4−5.
Richard P. Suttmeier and Cong Cao. 2007. “CHINA: Science and Technology Power is Emerging.” Oxford Analytica Daily Brief. Oxford, UK: Oxford Analytica (April 19).
Denis Fred Simon, Cong Cao, and Richard P. Suttmeier. 2007. “China’s New Science & Technology Strategy: Implications for Foreign Firms.” China Currents 6(2):2−7.
Denis Fred Simon and Cong Cao. 2007. “Comments: Not Enough U.S. Engineers?” Issues in Science and Technology 23(4):5−6.
Cong Cao. 2008. “China’s Innovation Challenge.” Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Asia Program Special Report 140:26−30.
Cong Cao. 2008. “Encourage Returnees.” Nature 454 (July 24): 401.