Projected Costs of Generating Electricity 2010 [online]

Authors: Nuclear Energy Agency / International Energy Agency

"Presents the latest data available for a wide variety of fuels and technologies, including coal and gas (with and without carbon capture), nuclear, hydro, onshore and offshore wind, biomass, solar, wave and tidal as well as combined heat and power (CHP). It provides levelised costs of electricity (LCOE) per MWh for almost 200 plants, based on data covering 21 countries (including four major non-OECD countries), and several industrial companies and organisations. For the first time, the report contains an extensive sensitivity analysis of the impact of variations in key parameters such as discount rates, fuel prices and carbon costs on LCOE. Additional issues affecting power generation choices are also examined." - abstract.

Chasing the Hottest IT: Effects of Information Technology Fashion on Organizations (journal article)
By Ping Wang
from MIS Quarterly Vol. 34 Issue 1 Mar 2010, pp. 63-85
"What happens to organizations that chase the hottest information technologies? This study examines some of the important organizational impacts of the fashion phenomenon in IT. An IT fashion is a transitory collective belief that an information technology is new, efficient, and at the forefront of practice. Using data collected from published discourse and annual IT budgets of 109 large companies for a decade, I have found that firms whose names were associated with IT fashions in the press did not have higher performance, but they had better reputation and higher executive compensation in the near term. Companies investing in IT in fashion also had higher reputation and executive pay, but they had lower performance in the short term and then improved performance in the long term. These results support a fashion explanation for the middle phase diffusion of IT innovations, illustrating that following fashion can legitimize organizations and their leaders regardless of performance improvement. The findings also extend institutional theory from its usual focus on taken-for-granted practices to fashion as a novel source of social approval. This study suggests that practitioners balance between performance pressure and social approval when they confront whatever is hottest in IT."

Open science : sharing knowledge in the global century [book]

Authors: Julian Cribb, Tjempaka Sari / CSIRO Publishing
Describes "low-cost, effective means to transfer knowledge to target audiences in industry, government, the community and to the public at large. ... Features sections on good science writing, practical advice on how to develop communication and media strategies, ways to measure communication performance, how to handle institutional 'crises', how to deal with politicians and much more." - cover.

Call number: 501.4 OPE 2010 or
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Requiem for a species : why we resist the truth about climate change [book]

Author: Clive Hamilton
Sometimes facing up to the truth is just too hard. There have been any number of urgent scientific reports in recent years emphasising just how dire the future looks and how little time we have left to act. But around the world only a few have truly faced up to the facts about global warming.This book is about why we have ignored those warnings, so that now it is too late. It is a book about the frailties of the human species: our strange obsessions, our hubris, and our penchant for avoiding the facts. It is the story of a battle within us between the forces that should have caused us to protect the earth, like our capacity to reason and our connection to nature, and our greed, materialism and alienation from nature, which, in the end, have won out.

Call number: 363.73874 REQ 2010
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Doing business in a new climate : a guide to measuring, reducing and offsetting greenhouse gas emissions [book]

Authors: Paul Lingl, Deborah Carlson and the David Suzuki Foundation

Around the world, a growing number of businesses are taking steps to reduce their climate impact by managing their greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, these businesses are discovering that effective greenhouse gas management can enhance their brands, motivate employees, increase operational efficiencies, and save money.

This guide walks readers through the key activities that make up a greenhouse gas management program, including measuring, reducing, and offsetting emissions and developing a communications strategy around the program. Throughout, case studies of over fifty leading businesses from around the world highlight innovation and solutions to common challenges, and further resources are provided for each section.

Find it at: 658.4083 DOI 2010 or
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The road to positive R&D returns (article)
by Eric David, Tony Tramontin and Rodney Zemmel
from McKinsey Quarterly, February 2010
"Scientific innovation is not the only route to higher R&D productivity. Attention to the familiar management areas of cost, speed, and decision making can still reap rewards."
Free registration required

Eco-innovation in industry : enabling green growth [online]
Author: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

Eco-innovation will be a key driver of industry efforts to tackle climate change and realise “green growth” in the post-Kyoto era. Eco-innovation calls for faster introduction of breakthrough technologies and for more systemic application of available solutions, including non-technological ones. It also offers opportunities to involve new players, develop new industries and increase competitiveness. Structural change in economies will be imperative in coming decades.

This book presents the research and analysis carried out during the first phase of the OECD Project on Sustainable Manufacturing and Eco-innovation. Its aim is to provide benchmarking tools on sustainable manufacturing and to spur eco-innovation through better understanding of innovation mechanisms. It reviews the concepts and forms an analytical framework; analyses the nature and processes of eco-innovation; discusses existing sustainable manufacturing indicators; examines methodologies for measuring eco-innovation; and takes stock of national strategies and policy initiatives for eco-innovation.

Never mind the quality feel the width: University–industry links and government financial support for innovation in small high-technology businesses in the UK and the USA (journal article)
by Andy Cosh and Alan Hughes
from Journal of Technology Transfer, Vol 35 No 1 Feb 2010, pp. 66-91
"In this paper we use a size and industry matched sample of over 1,900 UK and US businesses for the period 2004–05 in the manufacturing and business services sectors to analyse the relative “strength” of the university–industry ecosystems in which these firms operate in the two economies. Our analysis shows that in both countries universities per se play a quantitatively smaller role as a source of knowledge for business innovation than either the business sector itself or a variety of organisations intermediating between the university and business sectors. Our analysis reveals a much more diffuse university–industry ecosystem in the UK in which a higher proportion of businesses claim links external to themselves in their pursuit of knowledge for innovation and a higher proportion report directly connecting with universities. US firms are more likely to access knowledge through a combination of business and intermediary sources and are less likely to have established formal collaborative or partnership agreements in the 3 years prior to the survey. We also find, however, that a higher proportion of US firms place a very high value on the connections they have with universities and are much more likely to commit resources to support such innovation related university interactions. A similar pattern of diffuse but weaker links characterise the supply of public sector financial assistance for innovation in our sample firms. UK firms are more likely to be in receipt of assistance, but receive far less per firm in absolute terms and relative to their R&D expenditures. It appears that the UK university–industry ecosystem is characterised by a greater width than quality of interaction. "

Adverse selection and financing of innovation: is there a need for R&D subsidies? (journal article)
by Tuomas Takalo and Tanja Tanayama
from Journal of Technology Transfer Vol 35 No 1 Feb 2010, pp. 16-41
"We study the interaction of private and public funding of innovative projects in the presence of adverse-selection based financing constraints. Government programs allocating direct subsidies are based on ex ante screening of the subsidy applications. This selection scheme may yield valuable information to market-based financiers. We find that under certain conditions, public R&D subsidies can reduce the financing constraints of technology-based entrepreneurial firms. First, the subsidy itself reduces the capital costs related to the innovation projects by reducing the amount of market-based capital required. Second, the observation that an entrepreneur has received a subsidy for an innovation project provides an informative signal to the market-based financiers. We also find that public screening works more efficiently if it is accompanied with subsidy allocation. "

Delivering e-learning : a complete strategy for design, application and assessment [book]

Author: Kenneth Fee

"Presents a complete strategy for training and development. From deciding when to use, how to design, tips on selecting suppliers, and how to measure its effectiveness. Delivering E-Learning describes a new and better way of understanding e-learning. The author looks at overcoming objections to e-learning and acknowledging poor past practice before presenting a new strategic approach. It places the emphasis firmly on learning, not the technology, de-mystifying the jargon and de-bunking industry myths. The current way most people look at e-learning is flawed, and this means they are missing its full potential.

This book provides a clear framework to better understand e-learning. Proposing a strategic approach to implementing e-learning, the author demonstrates how to align e-learning strategy with learning and business strategies. It offers a complete resource for applying e-learning to any organization.

Find it at: 371.334 DEL 2009 or Click here, and request a copy from the library!

Indicator development as 'boundary spanning' between scientists and policy-makers (journal article)
By Helga Pülzl and Ewald Rametsteiner
from Science and Public Policy Vol 36 Number 10 Dec 2009, pp. 743-752
"In sustainability impact assessments the development of widely accepted indicators that structure the subject area and provide the framework for assessing sustainability impacts is clearly important. We argue that the development of sustainability indicators in science-based initiatives works across the science/policy interface where social and natural scientists as well as stakeholders and policy-makers both translate concepts and ideas to each other and thus make value judgments about the selection of indicators and related sub-classes. This explains why pure scientific indicator initiatives based on simple 'knowledge transfer' models are unlikely to succeed. Instead, sustainability indicator development requires a 'knowledge transaction model' which spans the boundary between the scientific and the political domains."

Can Technology Really Save Us from Climate Change? (journal article)
By Alex Rau, Rob Toker and Joanne Howard
from Harvard Business Review Vol 88 Iss 1 Jan 2010, pp. 21-23
"The article presents the authors' views on the outlook for the development of technological innovations and entrepreneurial industries that can reverse global warming. The discussion focuses on Moore's Law in the context of how long it takes to develop and implement energy-related innovations. The efficient use of capital investment and government regulations for clean technology and cost-benefit analysis for projections of emission rates and abatements in new energy technologies such as wind energy and solar photovoltaics are discussed."

OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2009 [online]

Author: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

"At a time when world economy is in the midst of the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression, the OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2009 provides the statistical information necessary to define a response to these global challenges.
This edition of the Scoreboard illustrates and analyses a wide set of indicators of science, technology, globalisation and industrial performance in OECD and major non OECD countries (notably Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China and South Africa). Indicators are organised around five issues: responding to the economic crisis, targeting new growth areas, competing in the world economy, connecting to global research, and investing in the knowledge economy."

It's how you use it that counts. (journal article)
by Michael Bond
from New Scientist Vol 204 No 2732, pp.36-39
"The article suggests that having a high intelligence quotient (IQ) does not guaranty all-round intelligence. According to professor Keith Stanovich of the University of Toronto, IQ tests fail in measuring abilities that are crucial to making good judgments in real-life situations. The palaentologist Stephen Jay Gould also claimed that general intelligence was a mathematic artefact."

Innovation and growth : chasing a moving frontier [online]

Authors: OECD / World Bank

"Innovation is crucial to long-term economic growth, even more so in the aftermath of the financial and economic crisis. Making innovation-driven growth happen requires action in a wide range of policy areas, from education and science and technology to product and labour markets and trade." - abstract.

Worlds Apart? A Comparison of the New Product Development Strategies of Biopharmaceutical Firms in Europe and the USA (journal article)
By Tianjiao Xia and Stephen Roper
from Industry & Innovation Vol 16 Iss 6 Dec 2009, pp. 593 - 612
"Globally the biopharmaceutical industry is characterized by strong competition, research-intensive and protracted new product development (NPD) processes, intensive regulation and extensive alliance activity. Policy regimes and operating environments differ markedly, however. Here we examine how these differences impact on the NPD strategies of biopharmaceutical firms in the USA and three major EU economies (the UK, France and Germany). Our analysis suggests four key differences between firms' NPD strategies in the two areas. First, while levels of R&D intensity and continuity are broadly similar in the two areas, US firms have notably stronger patent profiles, and are significantly more active in technology licensing than their European counterparts. Second, product development cycles are significantly longer in the USA than among our European respondents. Third, the nature of the product development pipeline is very different in the USA and the major European economies covered by our study: US firms conduct early stage development of more compounds than European firms but take only a similar number to market. Fourth, we see broadly similar levels of alliance activity in our US and European respondents at both the early and late stages of the NPD process. These results suggest a greater substitution of “market” for “hierarchy” in US firms' NPD strategies, reflecting differences in the availability and structure of government support in the USA and Europe."

Land & Water Australia, 1990-2009 : research reports and publications [CD ROM]

Author: Land and Water Australia

Contains an archive of all Land and Water Australia's research papers, publications and tools on topics including: climate, native vegetation, water & rivers and innovation, biodiversity, landscape management, and more.

Want to borrow a copy from the library? Click here to email through your request

Innovation practices within small to medium-sized mechanically-based manufacturers (journal article)
by Glenn Brophy and Steve Brown
from Innovation: management, policy and practice, Vol 11 No. 3, 2009
"Manufacturing SMEs remain an underdeveloped area of interest in the literature on innovation. SMEs whose principal skill sets are mechanical in nature (MechSMEs) and that serve multiple customer groups offer a particularly rich context for the study of innovation practices that are mostly under the control of the firm's managers. This empirically-based paper uses case studies based on multiple units of analysis within each firm so that the overall innovation practices of four mature firms (average firm age 45 years, minimum 20 years) and the practices used within thirteen specific innovations (both product and process innovations) were studied. This combination of studying firm-specific and innovation-specific practices was used to construct a picture of the most important innovation practices within each firm." (Ask us if you'd like the full text of this article).

Creating the engineering nation 2030 (journal article)
by Chris Fitzhardinge
from ATSE Focus, December 2009
"Engineering needs to be regarded as a pivotal career in promoting world amenity and productivity and has to communicate its role. ... Overseas-trained engineers will be an important component of engineering capability comprising half of our engineers in 2030. Much of our future engineering capability will have multiple qualifications, including Masters in Engineering. The relationship with India and China will dominate our economy. The maturing of the urbanisation of China and the one-child policy may see India assume a predominant role in influencing our economic future. Australians will continue to see the world as their source of education, entertainment and employment"

Two overarching priorities for STEM education (journal article)
by Lesley Parker and Adrian Egan
from ATSE Focus, December 2009
"A number of directions for the future emerged at the recent academy seminar, Science and Engineering Education: Towards 2030.These ranged from early childhood to adult learning, from quality of education to meeting a high and increasing workforce demand for engineers and scientists and from motivating individual students to shifting public perceptions of mathematics, science, technology and engineering – the enjoyment they provide and the roles they play in meeting community aspirations. Many of these directions are inter-related but, overall, they can be considered in four categories – wider society, students, teachers/lecturers/academics and industry. "