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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).

This paper analyses the evolution of the funding, governance and policy context of research and technology organisations (RTOs) over the last ten years, and the implications of these changes on their ability to achieve their mission. It shows that their contribution to solving societal challenges is now tightly intertwined with their historical mission of supporting innovation in industry and public administrations. Delivering on this increasingly demanding mission in evolving and sometimes unstable funding frameworks has led them to experiment with new internal organisational structures, business models and partnerships. The paper also draws implications for policy makers who play a key role in setting the environment in which RTOs operate and that determines in part their ability to deliver on the twin imperatives of strengthening economic competitiveness and tackling societal challenges.

Digital transformations bring about fundamental changes in how institutions – from governments to businesses – operate. National statistical offices (NSOs) face growing expectations from data users and need to adapt their digital capabilities accordingly. For NSOs in low and middle-income countries, who may have had limited exposure to digitalisation to date, keeping pace with rapid technological change is challenging. This report uses examples from six NSOs to explore common barriers for NSOs in their digital transformations and identifies specific drivers. The report makes a case for digital transformations through more comprehensive institutional changes such as governance, procurement and human resources. In addition, the report outlines specific recommendations at the individual, technological, organisational and system level to guide NSOs and their partners towards a successful digital transformation.

The debate on industrial policy has made a comeback in both academic and policy circles. Yet, no consensus exists on an industrial policy paradigm and the absence of a common reference framework unduly obfuscates the debate – even which interventions are to be considered 'industrial policy' is not clear-cut. Against this background, this paper proposes a coherent framework for analysing the formulation of industrial policy, relying on a purposefully broad definition of the latter. Leveraging the proposed framework and a companion paper which synthetises the available empirical evidence, this paper stresses the complementarities between policy instruments, thereby justifying the use of industrial strategies, acknowledges the role of targeted industrial strategies, which can direct technological change and growth, and of demand-side instruments, which can contribute to transformative industrial change, but calls for a stronger emphasis on evaluation and the regular re-assessment of targeted industrial strategies.

While the case for industrial policy is gaining traction across OECD countries, little consensus exists on the effectiveness of such interventions. Building on a new analytical framework for industrial policy developed in a companion paper, this paper reviews the empirical literature on the effectiveness of industrial policy instruments, laying out the knowns and unknowns. Overall, it strongly supports the premise that well-designed economic incentives for firms and good framework conditions shaping the business environment are effective. At the same time, it emphasises the limited and inconclusive nature of the evidence regarding the increasingly frequent targeted and demand-side instruments. Finally, it underlines the complementarities between economic incentives and other interventions such as skill policies or framework conditions, notably competition and trade policies. Framework conditions are indeed key in enabling the most productive firms to grow and an important channel for structural change.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has an unprecedented ambition, but also confronts countries with an enormous challenge given the complex and integrated nature of the Agenda with its 17 Goals, underpinned by 169 Targets. To assist national governments with their implementation, the OECD has developed a unique methodology allowing comparison of progress across SDG goals and targets, and also over time. Based on the Global indicator framework for the Sustainable Development Goals and leveraging UN and OECD data, this report provides a high-level assessment of OECD Member countries’ performance across the Goals and Targets of the 2030 Agenda. The report evaluates the distance that OECD countries need to travel to meet SDG targets for which data is currently available, but it goes one step further and deepens the analysis by identifying long-term trends, considering also how these trends may be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. By providing a high-level overview of countries’ strengths and weaknesses in performance across the SDGs, it aims to support Member countries in navigating the SDGs and in setting their own priorities for action within the broad 2030 Agenda.

Brain-computer interface (BCI) systems are in a period of rapid development and offer significant potential for the promotion of health and well-being. At the same time, they raise a range of unique ethical, legal, and policy questions, and few BCI-specific rules exist in a fragmented regulatory landscape. This report aims to help develop a responsible and anticipatory governance approach to promote innovation while shaping the trajectory of technology through a set of mechanisms, including (i) soft law, (ii) standardisation and ethics-by-design approaches, (iii) corporate self-governance, and (iv) participatory experiments for upstream governance.