Publications & Documents

Shenzhen is a stellar case of growth and economic transformation. Since its establishment as one of China’s first four Special Economic Zones in 1980, it has evolved at breakneck speed. Shenzhen transformed from a fishing village to a major world trade hub and is now home to global innovators in electronics. The Production Transformation Policy Review (PTPR) of Shenzhen, China reviews the city’s changing policy approaches, focusing on the shift from an assembly to a manufacturing centre and more recently to an innovation and start-up hub. Through a comprehensive assessment of Shenzhen’s experience, this review offers insights into the range of policies and strategies employed to stimulate industrial upgrading and learning in China. It provides lessons and actionable policy recommendations for the growth of cities and emerging economies in their catching-up journey. The PTPR of Shenzhen, China has been carried out in the framework of the OECD Initiative for Policy Dialogue on Global Value Chains, Production Transformation and Development and has benefitted from government-business dialogues and international peer learning (University of Seoul, Korea; University of Georgetown, USA and Digital India Foundation, India).

The slowdown in market demand for oil is putting increasing pressure on Kuwait's current economic and social model. This model is based on the distribution of petroleum export proceeds to Kuwaiti citizens, with relatively limited long-term investment in knowledge production and the upgrading of the national innovation capacity. The transition towards a knowledge-based society – where value creation, the resolution of societal challenges and the well-being of society at large will be based on the production, diffusion and implementation of knowledge – is becoming an imperative. This is recognised within the national development strategy which formulates the objective of attaining 'Smart Kuwait' by 2035. Such a transition is challenging and can only be achieved through the build-up of appropriate governance of the STI system with adequate institutions such as a Ministry and a professional agency with a mandate for research and innovation. This set-up should help raise awareness and reduce barriers to innovation, reinforce the scientific research base, develop the support for business innovation, foster knowledge diffusion and co‑creation between science and industry, build up the human capital needed, and establish the role of science, technology and innovation in tackling Kuwait's societal challenges.

Education systems operate in a world that is constantly evolving towards new equilibria, yet short-term crises may disrupt, accelerate or divert longer-term evolutions. This Framework for Responsiveness and Resilience in Education Policy aims to support policy makers to balance the urgent challenge of building eco-systems that adapt in the face of disruption and change (resilience), and the important challenge of navigating the ongoing evolution from industrial to post-industrial societies and economies (responsiveness). Building on international evidence and analysis from over 40 education, this framework endeavours to establish tangible, transferable and actionable definitions of resilience. These definitions, which are the goals of the framework (Why?), are underpinned by policy components of responsiveness (What?), which define priority areas for education policy makers. Policy pointers for resilience (How?) then illustrate how policy makers can apply these components in ways that promote resilience at the learner, broader learning environment and system levels of the policy ecosystem. Finally, a transversal component looks into the people and the processes undertaken in order to reach a given purpose (Who?). The report has been prepared with evidence from the Education Policy Outlook series – the OECD’s analytical observatory of education policy.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are major breakthrough technologies that are transforming the economy and society. The OECD’s Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Skills (AIFS) project is developing a programme to assess the capabilities of AI and robotics, and their impact on education and work. This volume reports on the first step of the project: identifying which capabilities to assess and which tests to use in the assessment. It builds on an online expert workshop that explored this question from the perspectives of both psychology and computer science. The volume consists of expert contributions that review skills taxonomies and tests in different domains of psychology, and efforts in computer science to assess AI and robotics. It provides extensive discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches, and outlines directions for the project. The report can therefore be a resource for the research community of multiple fields and policy makers who wish to obtain deeper insight into the complexity of machine capabilities.

Efforts that primarily focus on incremental change in systems that are unsustainable by design are one of the main barriers to scaling up climate action. This report applies the OECD well-being lens process to the transport sector. It builds on the report Accelerating Climate Action and encourages countries to focus climate action on delivering systems that - by design - improve well-being while requiring less energy and materials, and thus producing less emissions. The report identifies three dynamics at the source of car dependency and high emissions: induced demand, urban sprawl and the erosion of active and shared transport modes. The report also provides policy recommendations to reverse such dynamics and reduce emissions while improving well-being, from radical street redesign, to spatial planning aimed at increasing proximity, and policies to mainstream shared mobility. Analysis also shows why the effectiveness and public acceptability of carbon pricing and policies incentivising vehicle electrification can significantly increase after policy reprioritisation towards systems redesign.

L’un des principaux obstacles à une action climatique plus ambitieuse est que les initiatives visent essentiellement à apporter des modifications mineures à des systèmes qui sont fondamentalement non durables. Le rapport précité applique l’approche de l’OCDE axée sur le bien-être au secteur des transports. Il s’appuie sur le rapport « Accélérer l’action pour le climat » et encourage les pays à centrer leur action en faveur du climat sur la mise en place de systèmes qui – par nature – améliorent le bien-être tout en nécessitant moins d’énergie et de matières, et donc produisent moins d’émissions. Le rapport met en évidence trois phénomènes à l’origine de la dépendance à la voiture et du niveau élevé des émissions : le trafic induit, l’étalement urbain ainsi que l’érosion des solutions de mobilité active et partagée. Il formule en outre des recommandations à l’intention des pouvoirs publics pour mettre fin à cette dynamique et réduire les émissions tout en améliorant le bien-être : la réorganisation radicale des rues, l’aménagement de l’espace axé sur la création de proximité, ou des mesures visant à généraliser la mobilité partagée. L’analyse montre également pourquoi l’efficacité et l’acceptabilité par la société de la tarification du carbone ainsi que les politiques incitant à l’électrification des voitures peuvent sensiblement se développer une fois que les pouvoirs publics accordent la priorité à la refonte des systèmes.

L’un des principaux obstacles à une action climatique plus ambitieuse est que les initiatives visent essentiellement à apporter des modifications mineures à des systèmes qui sont fondamentalement non durables. Le rapport précité applique l’approche de l’OCDE axée sur le bien-être au secteur des transports. Il s’appuie sur le rapport « Accélérer l’action pour le climat » et encourage les pays à centrer leur action en faveur du climat sur la mise en place de systèmes qui – par nature – améliorent le bien-être tout en nécessitant moins d’énergie et de matières, et donc produisent moins d’émissions. Le rapport met en évidence trois phénomènes à l’origine de la dépendance à la voiture et du niveau élevé des émissions : le trafic induit, l’étalement urbain ainsi que l’érosion des solutions de mobilité active et partagée. Il formule en outre des recommandations à l’intention des pouvoirs publics pour mettre fin à cette dynamique et réduire les émissions tout en améliorant le bien-être : la réorganisation radicale des rues, l’aménagement de l’espace axé sur la création de proximité, ou des mesures visant à généraliser la mobilité partagée. L’analyse montre également pourquoi l’efficacité et l’acceptabilité par la société de la tarification du carbone ainsi que les politiques incitant à l’électrification des voitures peuvent sensiblement se développer une fois que les pouvoirs publics accordent la priorité à la refonte des systèmes.