Working at a high level takes discipline, knowledge... and time

Less Micro-management more Meso-management: Some interesting reports about Boards:

Report 1: McKinsey: High-performing boards: What’s on their agenda? Survey Results
The survey revealed dramatic differences in how directors allocated their time among boardroom activities and, most tellingly, in the respondents’ view of the effectiveness of their boards. More than one in four of the directors assessed their impact as moderate or lower, while others reported having a high impact across board functions. So what marks the agenda of a high-performing board?

Report 2: Position paper about High performance boards by Canadian Coalition for Good Governance
A HIGH PERFORMANCE BOARD IS ACCOUNTABLE AND INDEPENDENT
Guideline 1. Facilitate shareholder democracy
Guideline 2. Ensure at least two thirds of directors are independent of management
Guideline 3. Separate the roles of Board Chair and Chief Executive Officer

A HIGH PERFORMANCE BOARD HAS EXPERIENCED, KNOWLEDGEABLE AND EFFECTIVE DIRECTORS WITH THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF INTEGRITY
Guideline 4. Ensure that directors are highly competent and bring the requisite knowledge and experience to the board
Guideline 5. Ensure that the goal of every director is to make integrity the hallmark of the corporation
Guideline 6. Establish reasonable compensation and share ownership guidelines for directors
Guideline 7. Evaluate board, committee and individual director performance

A HIGH PERFORMANCE BOARD HAS CLEAR ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Guideline 8. Establish mandates for board committees and ensure committee independence
Guideline 9. Adopt well defined board processes and procedures that support board independence.
Guideline 10. Oversee Strategy
Guideline 11. Oversee risk management
Guideline 12. Assess the Chief Executive Officer and plan for succession
Guideline 13. Develop and oversee executive compensation plans

A HIGH PERFORMANCE BOARD ENGAGES WITH SHAREHOLDERS
Guideline 14. Report governance policies and initiatives to shareholders
Guideline 15. Engage with shareholders

Photo: Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images. Mansfield, Ohio June 1941
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The rights of the Child. Nothing more to say about child poverty

20.2 % of children under 16 years of age are poor in Europe. 25% in SPAIN (2012)

"Child poverty, probably the most visible effect on children of the economic crisis and fiscal austerity measures, has a potentially devastating, long-term impact, given that it tends to be one of the major root causes of poverty and social exclusion in adulthood".

Some reports to think about the children poverty in Spain, Europe.

1. Comissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe (2013) Report after the Spain Visit
2. Save the children (2014) Pobreza infantil y exclusión social en Europa
3. Creu Roja (2013) 4rt estudi Observatori Vulnerabilitat: Infància i entorn escolar
4. Inequality Watch (2012) Poverty in Europe

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union Article 24: The rigths of the child

1. Children shall have the right to such protection and care as is necessary for their well-being. They may express their views freely. Such views shall be taken into consideration on matters which concern them in accordance with their age and maturity.
2. In all actions relating to children, whether taken by public authorities or private institutions, the child's best interests must be a primary consideration.
3. Every child shall have the right to maintain on a regular basis a personal relationship and direct contact with both his or her parents, unless that is contrary to his or her interests.

2014: 25 years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child United Nations

Something more to say?

photo: (*) Photosolde
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how to avoid innovation policy evaluation simply end up on shelves unread or ignored

New World Bank-OECD 214 publication.Making Innovation Policy Work: Learning from Experimentation

This book explores emerging topics in innovation policy for more inclusive and sustainable growth, building on concrete examples. It develops the notion of experimental innovation policy – which integrates monitoring and feedback at the policy design stage, and occurs continuously to improve impact and implementation. This approach should help improve the quality and efficiency of public expenditures supporting innovation policy.

Special mention to the chapter 8 (by Eric Oldsman): Making evaluations count: Toward more informed policy: Read online

The chapter explores the role and the difference of monitoring and evaluation and its influence on policy design.

Recognising the importance of innovation, governments around the world have launched policies aimed at accelerating the development and application of technology. In many instances, the allocation of resources has been accompanied by calls for meaningful measurement of results and greater accountability. This is particularly true in an era of tight budgets and fiscal austerity.

Organisations are therefore placing greater emphasis on trying to measure their performance. Reciting the mantra – “what gets measured gets done” – more and more organisations are picking particular aspects of performance to measure and then devote significant resources to collecting data and reporting results. However, there is evidence that much of this effort may be wasted. To be useful, the right things need to be measured in the right way.

As importantly, data need to be turned into information, information into insights, and insights into action. This implies that performance measurement should be embedded in a broader evaluation system, which fosters critical thinking and continuous improvement as part of a policy cycle.

Organisations need to make sure to count what is important and count it correctly. However, while necessary, organisations need to go well beyond simply measuring performance. They need to focus attention on determining the factors that underlie performance, diagnosing the root cause of any identified deficiencies, in order to take appropriate corrective action. They also need to consider a broad range of issues that do not lend themselves easily to measurement. More generally, critical thinking – an ability to state questions clearly, marshal valid and reliable information, weigh evidence, assess the strength of arguments, recognise implicit assumptions and values, and draw reasoned conclusions – needs to be encouraged throughout the organisation.

Formative evalutions are critically important. They provide an opportunity for organisations to examine accepted truths, questioning the justification for specific claims and calling attention to unstated assumptions.

Clearly, organisations need to establish the technical capacity to undertake evaluations successfully. As importantly, to realise the full promise of using evaluations to inform policy, senior managers must actively support the process and cultivate a culture of learning.

photo: NASA
After launching on March 3, 1969, the crew of Apollo 9 spent 10 days in low Earth orbit. On the fifth day of mission, Jim McDivitt and Russell Schweickart separated the Lunar Module from the command ship and flew it for the first time — 145 miles over the Atlantic Ocean. 
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What if countries competed with each other to become the most socially innovative in the world?

 

The Social Progress Imperative, is a nonprofit in the United States created in 2012. They are the autors of the Social Progress Index launched in April 2013.

The Social Progress Index offers a measure of the multiple dimensions of social progress, benchmarking success, and catalyzing greater human wellbeing.

The methodology for the Social Progress Index was developed and refined under the leadership of Social Progress’s Advisory Board Chair, Professor Michael Porter of Harvard Business School, with guidance from Advisory Board members Matthew Bishop, Judith Rodin of the Rockefeller Foundation, Hernando de Soto of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, and Scott Stern of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The conceptual underpinnings draw heavily on the work done by Joseph Stiglitz, Amartya Sen and Jean-Paul Fitoussi for France’s Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress.

The Three dimensions of the social progress index

• Basic human needs: Does a country provide for its people’s most essential needs?
• Foundations of wellbeing: Are the building blocks in place for individuals and communities to enhance and sustain wellbeing?
• Opportunity: Iss there opportunity for all individuals to reach their full potential?

Some Findings

• Social progress is distinct from economic development, though correlated with it.Some countries with low GDP per capita are able to achieve surprising levels of social progress, while some relatively prosperous nations register levels of social progress lower than less wealthy countries. Explicitly distinguishing social progress from economic development allows us to gain deeper insight into each one.
• Some aspects of social progress are more closely related to the level of economic development than others.
• There is no single measure that captures all aspects of social progress.Each dimension is distinct from the others, and each component within each dimension is also distinct.
• Countries have relative strengths and weaknesses in social progress, both across dimensions and across components within dimensions. These strengths and weaknesses set the social progress agenda for each country.

Watch the video: Video
Social Progress Index 2014: Acces to 2014 data
Where are we?: SPAIN
photo: (*) Photosolde 
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data is now touching everyone lifes

Individuals are tracking a variety of health-related data via a growing number of wearable devices and smartphone apps.

More and more data relevant to health are also being captured passively as people communicate with one another on social networks, shop, work, or do any number of activities that leave “digital footprints.

Almost all of these forms of “personal health data” (PHD) are outside of the mainstream of traditional health care, public health or health research. Medical, behavioral, social and public health research still largely rely on traditional sources of health data such as those collected in clinical trials, sifting through electronic medical records, or conduct ing periodic surveys.

Self-tracking data can provide better measures of everyday behavior and lifestyle and can fill in gaps in more traditional clinical data collection,giving us a more complete picture of health.

With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Health Data Exploration (HDE) project conducted a study to better understand the barriers to using personal health data in research from the individuals who track the data about their own personal health, the companies that market self-tracking devices, apps or services and aggregate and manage that data, and the researchers who might use the data as part of their research.

Acces Report (pdf): PERSONAL HEALTH DATA
Website Project: HEALTH DATA EXPLORATION PROJECT

photo: (*) Photosolde 
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Think tanks ranking

 

A think tank (or policy institute, research institute, etc.) is an organization that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, defense, science and technology, and culture. Most policy institutes are non-profit organizations. Other think tanks are funded by governments, advocacy groups, or businesses, or derive revenue from consulting or research work related to their projects

The University of Pennsylvania has published its 7th annual 2013 The Global Go To Think Tank Index (GGTTI). A ranking of more thant 6,500 thinks tanks all over the world. The Index has become the gold standard for think tanks and is widely cited by governments, donors, journals and policymakers as the foremost profile and performance of think tanks in every region of the world.

2013 GGTTI REPORT

Top Think Tank worldwide: Brookings Institution (United States)
Top Heath Policy: Cambridge Centre for Health Services Research (United Kingdom)
Top Science and Technology: Max Planck Institute (German)

In Spain:
Top think tanks worldwide:
#60 FAES
#64 CIDOB
Science and Technology: #28. Fundación de la Innovación Bankinter

photo: Robert W. Kelley—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Ken Isaacs (front) and a colleague work on the outside of Isaccs' "knowledge box," Chicago, 1962
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Biocat 2013 report: Catalan life science statuts and analysis

The 2013 Biocat Report shows that the life sciences sector in Catalonia has reached a turning point.

We are facing two key challenges: generating and capturing value, on one hand, and promoting growth, on the other.  And this is at a difficult moment, marked by a profound economic crisis and changes in the research and production models that are affecting the sector.

The analysis in the chapters of the report identifies challenges for all of the stakeholders in the BioRegion, both public and private. The data shows:

• We must maintain support for innovation and entrepreneurship in the public arena —seeking out maximum efficiency in management of the knowledge generated and its transfer.
• We must also encourage companies —large and small— to participate in international research programs and public-private partnerships in order to bring innovation to the market and, in short, to the people.
• We must promote growth, establishing measures that facilitate market access and internationalization, but also guidance programs to support project maturation.

Europe will be key over the coming two years —launch of the Horizon 2020 program, defining RIS3 strategies, calls for the European Institute of Innovation and Technology’s KIC— but success will depend in large part on the players in the ecosystem aligning under a common vision.

Català Document complet (PDF)
English Executive Summary (PDF)  The full English version will be available shortly
Castellano Resumen Ejecutivo (PDF)








photo: © Dani: Creative Commons ShareAlike licence
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