Capacity Building

UNESCO’s approach to capacity building in science and technology park development is to facilitate exchanges between experienced science park managers (resource persons or experts) with future managers (trainees). UNESCO, in cooperation with its financial partners, has set up a five year plan for capacity building of science and technology park managers. The objective of capacity building activities is regularly upgrading the knowledge of managers or future managers of science and technology parks in developing countries.

1. The first training workshop on Science and Technology Park development was organized in collaboration with the International Association of Science Parks (IASP) and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) in Bergamo, Italy, 19 and 20 September 2004.

2. Annual Training Workshops on Science and Technology Park Governance have been held in Daejeon, Republic of Korea, since 2005 (Proceedings 2005, 2006 and 2007). These training workshops have been conducted in close cooperation with the World Technopolis Association (WTA). According to our original plan, we expected to train 25 managers per year. In fact, however, the last workshop was attended by more than 100 participants.

3. Recently UNESCO has been involved in the organization of two international conferences. The first, the “International Conference on Regional Innovation Systems and Science and Technology Policies in Emerging Economies” was held in Guangzhou, China, 19 to 21 April 2004; and the second, Isfahan 2006 International Conference on Science and Technology Parks, was held in Isfahan, Iran, 16 to19 September 2006.