UniversitŽé Saint-Louis - Bruxelles

Conference Theme

 

 

Context

 

 

After having experienced accelerated industrialization and urbanization in the last three decades, the emerging economies are now facing mounting environmental, social and demographic challenges. Overcoming them will require a shift toward a growth model that is more technology intensive and environmentally sustainable. In the security field, recent technologies generate new tools of surveillance and intervention which hare provoking important changes in the nature of long-term military capabilities. These elements induce emerging powers to upgrade their knowledge and innovation capacities to move closer to a knowledge-based society and adopt more technology-intensive military capacities.

 

Despite the US technological and scientific advance in key new industries like IT, biotechnologies and nanotechnologies, the EU still remains one of the top three technological innovators in the world and one major provider of scientific knowledge. Its R&D capacities, its high-tech firms and its high-level universities are seen as a useful the emerging powers in their attempt to reduce the knowledge gap with the most advanced economies of the world. There are potential complementarities between the EU and the emerging economies that could help to overcome global challenges. There are also sources of potential competition as the emerging economies are trying to shape the international division of labour and the international value chain more in their favour; develop their own national champions in key industries; challenge IPRs involving European technology; and pursue their own strategic regional and global security objectives.        

 

Call for papers