March 13, 2008

GIES2008 International Organizing Committee

The international society now faces various world-scale problems, such as global warming, climate change, and the shortage of water and food, to name a few. These problems will become more serious in the future unless we take action now to resolve them. Science-based innovation is the most powerful tool for resolving such issues, and we must establish a Global Innovation Ecosystem in which all stakeholders in all nations of the earth play a role toward achieving common goals.

The notion of a Global Innovation Ecosystem (GIES) was proposed at GIES2006 in Kyoto and is an important global scheme to promote science-based innovation in relevant technical areas and to widely apply innovation outcomes toward the resolution of various global problems. The GIES has two aspects: competitive and cooperative. The G8 Summit 2007 in Heiligendamm and the World Economic Forum 2008 in Davos revealed the necessity of merging competitive innovation and cooperative innovation to realize “Cool Earth 50” and thus the notion of GIES is commonly shared worldwide.

At GIES2008 held in Hitotsubashi, Tokyo, some 400 people gathered to discuss how to establish and utilize GIES to achieve sustainable development, taking, as examples, such issues as the more effective use of renewable energy, novel transportation systems with far lower energy consumption, and the resolution of water and food shortages.

Difficulties that we are now facing globally are related to our vision for our future and for the international society. In view of such problems, we must create a global vision for a much longer term and from a much broader perspective. We have to create and utilize knowledge to overcome anticipated difficulties across the border. The goal of resolving all global problems and achieving true sustainable development will be attained only when all nations on the earth work together toward common goals not only by revising their own national policies to be in line with global ones but also by making far more effort than ever before. In the process, conventional economic value must be converted into new socio-economic value. Once GIES is established and science-based innovation is continuously achieved, economic growth will coexist with sustainability.

Japan is a leader in energy and environmental technologies and should play a leadership role in establishing GIES to achieve common goals.

The GIES2008 International Organizing Committee declares herewith that the following five actions should be taken without delay for resolving current and anticipated global problems and difficulties:

• Each nation should aggressively invest in the promotion of science and technology to drive innovation whose outcomes should be shared internationally to resolve global problems.
• A global network should be formed to exchange information on each nation's further efforts to overcome global problems and thereby share best practices. It is recommended that each country create model cities or areas where energy consumption is greatly reduced through the application of innovation outcomes. This would increase the level of awareness on the importance of energy saving worldwide.
• Governments should take the lead in the initial stage to apply innovation outcomes to resolve global problems. It should nonetheless be established that, in the market economy, any actions to resolve global problems should be self-sustainable and economically rational.
• Stakeholders should promote the innovation research network to accelerate collaboration and sharing of innovation policy research. To support the stakeholders, specialists in sciences, engineering, economics, and other social sciences should work together to seek ways to apply innovation outcomes to resolve global problems in a market economy.
• Take action, innovate yourself to help preserve the Cool Earth for your future generation.