Dataset Information

Climatic shocks associate with innovation in science and technology.

ABSTRACT: Human history is shaped by landmark discoveries in science and technology. However, across both time and space the rate of innovation is erratic: Periods of relative inertia alternate with bursts of creative science and rapid cascades of technological innovations. While the origins of the rise and fall in rates of discovery and innovation remain poorly understood, they may reflect adaptive responses to exogenously emerging threats and pressures. Here we examined this possibility by fitting annual rates of scientific discovery and technological innovation to climatic variability and its associated economic pressures and resource scarcity. In time-series data from Europe (1500-1900CE), we indeed found that rates of innovation are higher during prolonged periods of cold (versus warm) surface temperature and during the presence (versus absence) of volcanic dust veils. This negative temperature-innovation link was confirmed in annual time-series for France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (1901-1965CE). Combined, across almost 500 years and over 5,000 documented innovations and discoveries, a 0.5°C increase in temperature associates with a sizable 0.30-0.60 standard deviation decrease in innovation. Results were robust to controlling for fluctuations in population size. Furthermore, and consistent with economic theory and micro-level data on group innovation, path analyses revealed that the relation between harsher climatic conditions between 1500-1900CE and more innovation is mediated by climate-induced economic pressures and resource scarcity.

SUBMITTER: De Dreu CKW

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5783359 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Climatic shocks associate with innovation in science and technology.

De Dreu Carsten K W CKW van Dijk Mathijs A MA

PloS one 20180124 1

Human history is shaped by landmark discoveries in science and technology. However, across both time and space the rate of innovation is erratic: Periods of relative inertia alternate with bursts of creative science and rapid cascades of technological innovations. While the origins of the rise and fall in rates of discovery and innovation remain poorly understood, they may reflect adaptive responses to exogenously emerging threats and pressures. Here we examined this possibility by fitting annua ...[more]

PMID: 29364910

Similar Datasets

Project description:Africa's focus on science, technology, and innovation (STI) has grown over the last decade, with emerging examples of good practice. There are however numerous challenges to sustainable development in Africa; for example, inequalities within and among African countries are rising and enormous disparities of opportunity, wealth, and power persist. While policy makers and organizations have put increasing emphasis on integrating gender into STI policies and initiatives as a means to achieve gender equality for all women and girls, inequality remains a key challenge to continental sustainable development. STI funders such as the Science Granting Councils (SGCs) in Africa are key players in national innovation systems. They advise and facilitate policy and program development, disburse funds, build research capacity, set and monitor research agendas, manage bilateral and multilateral STI agreements, and assess the communication, uptake, and impact of research. They, therefore, have a major role to play in enabling countries to achieve SDG5. This study assessed the current actions in gender mainstreaming across the SGCs and the status of gender research and collaboration in participating countries. Our findings provide evidence of uneven progress in promoting gender equality in the operations of the SGCs, including funding research and promoting the integration of gender dimensions in research content and curricula. All SGCs emphasized national commitments to gender, and the importance of gender in STI, but acknowledged that at the structural and institutional levels there was a misalignment between policy and practice. As expected, more men than women were employed across most levels at the SGCs and held positions of seniority and decision making. Most of the SGCs had very limited or no gender-related funding programs to promote gender and STI or to eliminate the barriers that women scholars face. This resulted in persistent inequalities in who received funding, the size of the grants they received, and in the knowledge production, collaboration, and the impact on their country's gender-related research. These findings suggest that SGCs need to strengthen their actions to mainstream gender if they are to achieve success with SDG5.

Dataset Information

Climatic shocks associate with innovation in science and technology.

Publications

Climatic shocks associate with innovation in science and technology.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets