Role of Science, Technology and Innovation in Ensuring Sustainable Inclusive Development

Abstract

I must confess that I am no expert to speak on the role of science, technology and innovation in ensuring sustainable inclusive development. But I wonder who is the appropriate expert? I do not believe that we have produced a significant, coherent body of knowledge that we can draw upon to ensure sustainable inclusive development. Although our broad goals may be clear, we are certainly groping in the dark for ideas on how to achieve the goal of sustainable inclusive development. Until we create such a coherent body of knowledge, we have to draw upon many different disciplines, however disjointed they may be, to make some headway. But, what disciplines can help us? Clearly there are many – engineering, agriculture, medicine, demography, epidemiology, ecology, biotechnology, information technology are the obvious ones. Perhaps we may persuade people to agree to include sociology and political science. I would argue however that this list is entirely inadequate and may actually lead us in quite the wrong direction. We need to add a very different set of disciplines to our cocktail – anthropology, history, archaeology, palaeontology and evolutionary biology.