Our guest speaker this week was Professor James Lipton. Professor Lipton has been involved in the international education community for some years and gave us a presentation on political economy, specifically how the EU runs a program called Horizon 2020 which provides funding for start-up companies to research and develop new technologies. Huge amounts of money is invested each year by the European Union, upwards of 13 billion Euros a year. This program has been very successful in researching climate change, sustainable development, and the green deal. The point most driven home by Lipton is how the Horizon framework has strengthened international cooperation and research across the EU with huge benefits. The research that has been done has made the EU less dependent on silicon valley and has pushed the EU to the forefront of STEM technology development.
I find this international method of research fascinating, especially given its results. America is very much hamstrung by our domestic outlook on development and research. Rather than work with countries around the globe on technology development, we focus purely on ourselves and our research. As a result, we find our budget for sustainability and environmental impacts research very much lacking as compared to our European contemporaries. If we were able to better cooperate with other countries we could join the global effort to stymy climate change rather than trying to “clear the air” ourselves.
