Governance of International Networks: A Social Network Analysis of International Institutions Related to Plant Genetic Resources

April 7-9, 2009, Manchester UK

Governing in the modern times has become more multifaceted with evolving governing structures over the globe. Institutions are intertwined and embedded in governing networks at sub-nation, state, regional and international levels. With this perspective, the paper examines the international governing system of plant genetics and genomic resources. Over the last century, issues have surfaced with technology progress and innovations that add complexity in the governing challenge, such as access and benefit-sharing and capacity-building. A network of 111 institutions and programs was studied. Using multiple layers of social network analysis, the structures and underlying meanings of relations in the governing network are studied.

12th International ICABR Conference on the Future of Agricultural Biotechnology: Creative Destruction, Adoption, or Irrelevance?

June 12-14, 2009, Ravello Italy

As an innovation makes its arduous journey from an idea to a commercialized product, it faces a series of thresholds that act as decision points to proceed or discontinue. While many of these thresholds address features of the actual innovation itself, such as prototype design and cost of production, some of the thresholds are external to the innovation. Thresholds of this nature can be regulatory costs, regulatory timing and intellectual property costs. Taken in combination, all of these thresholds have the ability to determine whether the innovation is commercialized or falls into the valley of death. This paper will model R&D and coommercialization costs for the commercialization of GM canola to test for variable sensitivities. This will demonstrate how the internal rate of return plays a crucial role for firms as they determine whether to cross each of these thresholds. data is available for both public and private GM canola commercialization that will allow us to identify which variables play crucial roles in the innovation cycle.

Political Networks Conference: Bridging Spatial and Network Analyses

June 12-13, 2009, Harvard

Public-private partnetrship is a new model of centerless or networked governance that has emerged in recent years. This model is being used extensively in the national and international structures and substructures of research, development, commercialization and knowledge management thyat have emerged in the past generation in the global agri-food system. This paper exmaines three functioning networks of RD&C - one each in Australia and Canada, and then the global pulse system- and two competing knowledge management systems (PIPRA and Cambia). The theory of innovation and knowledge management will be discussed, using case studies and social network analysis to analyze the nature and strength of the five systems.