The Digital Civilizations Interviews

Therefore, sciences and technologies are at the heart of activities and arguments that will transcend the strict frame of laboratories. This is illustrated by the scientific expertise and the relevant issues. What do we understand by scientific proof? What would be the type of relations between experts and decision-makers? In which way will the citizens participate in the debates on sciences and technologies?

Such contemporary and future R&D figures will be based on networks of hybrid relations between the “public” and “private”; they will contribute to the renewal of public policies in the research field and, finally, to the creation of innovative companies via research (a multiplication of technology transfer activities in higher education and research institutions).

Three major issues or problems emanate from such type of contemporary hybridization between research and development, public and private, science and industry:

• The problem of the organization of these strategic partnerships, through the implementation and regulation of new interfaces between production, development-research and industrial innovation;
• The problem of the interdisciplinary application, likely to renew the mechanisms of group work and professional identities’ training;
• The market problem i.e. the « marketing « of products, services and knowledge that might be subject to broad attributions and competitive valuations.